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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: hollow in the earth, with the remains of a crumbling chimney
standing sentinel beside it, here the house must have stood.
What joys, what sorrows once centred around this cold and
desolate hearth-stone? What children went forth like birds
from this dismantled nest into the wide world? What guests
found refuge----
"Take care! stand back! There is a rattlesnake in the old
cellar."
The voice, even more than the words, startled me. I drew
away suddenly, and saw, behind the ruins of the chimney, a man
of an aspect so striking that to this day his face and figure
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