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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: produce men of high culture. Now there is no place for them
except as bookkeepers or pedagogues or newspaper reporters.
Meantime the incessant unintellectual activity is only a
sublime bore to those who stand aside."
"Then why stand aside?" persisted the downright Harry.
"I have no place in it but a lounging-place," said Malbone. "I
do not wish to chop blocks with a razor. I envy those men,
born mere Americans, with no ambition in life but to 'swing a
railroad' as they say at the West. Every morning I hope to
wake up like them in the fear of God and the love of money."
"You may as well stop," said Harry, coloring a little.
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