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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Essays of Travel by Robert Louis Stevenson: this, and he will have some imperfect notion of the sentiment with
which spirited English youths turn to the thought of the American
Republic. It seems to them as if, out west, the war of life was
still conducted in the open air, and on free barbaric terms; as if it
had not yet been narrowed into parlours, nor begun to be conducted,
like some unjust and dreary arbitration, by compromise, costume forms
of procedure, and sad, senseless self-denial. Which of these two he
prefers, a man with any youth still left in him will decide rightly
for himself. He would rather be houseless than denied a pass-key;
rather go without food than partake of stalled ox in stiff,
respectable society; rather be shot out of hand than direct his life
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