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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: The others, from their fitful unconvincing talk, their expressions of being
slowly and painfully smothered, seemed to be suffering from the toil of social
life and the horror of good food as much as himself. All of them accepted with
relief the suggestion of bridge.
Babbitt recovered from the feeling of being boiled. He won at bridge. He was
again able to endure Vergil Gunch's inexorable heartiness. But he pictured
loafing with Paul Riesling beside a lake in Maine. It was as overpowering and
imaginative as homesickness. He had never seen Maine, yet he beheld the
shrouded mountains, the tranquil lake of evening. "That boy Paul's worth all
these ballyhooing highbrows put together," he muttered; and, "I'd like to get
away from--everything."
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