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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: gloves, were all deemed necessary to the official state of men
assuming the reins of power, and were readily allowed to
individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sumptuary
laws forbade these and similar extravagances to the plebeian
order. In the array of funerals, too -- whether for the apparel
of the dead body, or to typify, by manifold emblematic devices of
sable cloth and snowy lawn, the sorrow of the survivors -- there
was a frequent and characteristic demand for such labour as
Hester Prynne could supply. Baby-linen -- for babies then wore
robes of state -- afforded still another possibility of toil and
emolument.
The Scarlet Letter |
