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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: Bjarne said, 'And that we will not do. Get thou down into the boat,
and I will get up into the ship, now I see that thou art so greedy
after life.' So Bjarne went up into the ship, and the man went down
into the boat; and the boat went on its voyage till they came to
Dublin in Ireland. Most men say that Bjarne and his comrades
perished among the worms; for they were never heard of after."
This story may serve as a text for my whole lecture. Not only does
it smack of the sea-breeze and the salt water, like all the finest
old Norse sagas, but it gives a glimpse at least of the nobleness
which underlay the grim and often cruel nature of the Norseman. It
belongs, too, to the culminating epoch, to the beginning of that era
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