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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: the thing criticized. The bass-viol player and the clerk
usually spoke with more authority than the rest on account
of their official connection with the preacher.
Now the Three Mariners was the inn chosen by Henchard as the
place for closing his long term of dramless years. He had
so timed his entry as to be well established in the large
room by the time the forty church-goers entered to their
customary cups. The flush upon his face proclaimed at once
that the vow of twenty-one years had lapsed, and the era of
recklessness begun anew. He was seated on a small table,
drawn up to the side of the massive oak board reserved for
The Mayor of Casterbridge | 
