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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: mistake - perhaps a half-excusable one - about the distribution of
his ship's cargo should pay the penalty. A piece of one of the
minor spars that did carry away flew against the chief mate's back,
and sent him sliding on his face for quite a considerable distance
along the main deck. Thereupon followed various and unpleasant
consequences of a physical order - "queer symptoms," as the
captain, who treated them, used to say; inexplicable periods of
powerlessness, sudden accesses of mysterious pain; and the patient
agreed fully with the regretful mutters of his very attentive
captain wishing that it had been a straightforward broken leg.
Even the Dutch doctor who took the case up in Samarang offered no
 The Mirror of the Sea |