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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: might be reachable in a few minutes' walk. This the final aim; but
in immediate action every minor and possible good to be instantly
done, when, and as, we can; roofs mended that have holes in them--
fences patched that have gaps in them--walls' buttressed that
totter--and floors propped that shake; cleanliness and order
enforced with our own hands and eyes, till we are breathless, every
day. And all the fine arts will healthily follow. I myself have
washed a flight of stone stairs all down, with bucket and broom, in
a Savoy inn, where they hadn't washed their stairs since they first
went up them; and I never made a better sketch than that afternoon.
These, then, are the three first needs of civilized life; and the
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