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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: one has dared to speak aloud; but the rest whisper behind the hand; one
says, 'My son has a post, he would lose it if I spoke loud'; and another
says, 'I have a promise of land'; and another, 'I am socially intimate with
these men, and should lose my social standing if I let my voice be heard.'
Oh my wife, our land, our goodly land, which we had hoped would be free and
strong among the peoples of earth, is rotten and honeycombed with the
tyranny of gold! We who had hoped to stand first in the Anglo-Saxon
sisterhood for justice and freedom, are not even fit to stand last. Do I
not know only too bitterly how weak is my voice; and that that which I can
do is as nothing: but shall I remain silent? Shall the glow-worm refuse
to give its light, because it is not a star set up on high; shall the
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