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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: high degree of heartiness, sound morals, and reverence for the Constitution.
There were four reasons for joining these orders: It was the thing to do. It
was good for business, since lodge-brothers frequently became customers. It
gave to Americans unable to become Geheimrate or Commendatori such unctuous
honorifics as High Worthy Recording Scribe and Grand Hoogow to add to the
commonplace distinctions of Colonel, Judge, and Professor. And it permitted
the swaddled American husband to stay away from home for one evening a week.
The lodge was his piazza, his pavement cafe. He could shoot pool and talk
man-talk and be obscene and valiant.
Babbitt was what he called a "joiner" for all these reasons.
Behind the gold and scarlet banner of his public achievements was the dun
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