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    The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: somnolent, grinning Hodges will suddenly display activity of 
body and finesse of mind.  By their names ye may know them, 
the women figuring as Loveina, Larsenia, Serena, Leanna, 
Orreana; the men answering to Alvin, Alva, or Orion, 
pronounced Orrion, with the accent on the first.  Whether 
they are indeed a race, or whether this is the form of 
degeneracy common to all back-woodsmen, they are at least 
known by a generic byword, as Poor Whites or Low-downers.
 I will not say that the Hanson family was Poor White, because 
the name savours of offence; but I may go as far as this - 
they were, in many points, not unsimilar to the people 
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