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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: prairies had smiled before. The tremendous catastrophe which had
befallen Tom had changed his moral landscape in much the same way.
Some of his low places he found lifted to ideals, some of his ideas
had sunk to the valleys, and lay there with the sackcloth and ashes
of pumice stone and sulphur on their ruined heads.
For days he wandered in lonely places, thinking, thinking, thinking--
trying to get his bearings. It was new work. If he met a friend,
he found that the habit of a lifetime had in some mysterious way vanished--
his arm hung limp, instead of involuntarily extending the hand for a shake.
It was the "nigger" in him asserting its humility, and he blushed
and was abashed. And the "nigger" in him was surprised when the white
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