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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Research Magnificent by H. G. Wells: for his portrait. Yet, essentially, Benham's idea was simple. He
had an incurable, an almost innate persuasion that he had to live
life nobly and thoroughly. His commoner expression for that
thorough living is "the aristocratic life." But by "aristocratic"
he meant something very different from the quality of a Russian
prince, let us say, or an English peer. He meant an intensity, a
clearness. . . . Nobility for him was to get something out of his
individual existence, a flame, a jewel, a splendour--it is a thing
easier to understand than to say.
One might hesitate to call this idea "innate," and yet it comes soon
into a life when it comes at all. In Benham's case we might trace
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