ShmoopTube

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To Shmoop or not to Shmoop, that is... not this question...

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Your "pause" finger might be getting a little rusty. Better keep it in shape. Give this

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passage a quick skim...

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According to lines 66 through 77, what lesson did each brother learn from his family's relationship to money?

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And here are the potential answers...

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Ah, if we all could only learn from our family's money problems, rather than repeating their mistakes...

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Fortunately, this passage is fiction, so... we can!

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Let's start by looking at lines 66 through 77...

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"These two brothers had been brought up together in a school at Exeter; and, being accustomed

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to go home once a week, had often heard, from their mother's lips, long accounts of their

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father's sufferings in his days of poverty, and of their deceased uncle's importance in

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his days of affluence: which recitals produced a very different impression on the two: for,

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while the younger, who was of a timid and retiring disposition, gleaned from thence

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nothing but forewarnings to shun the great world and attach himself to the quiet routine

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of a country life, Ralph, the elder, deduced from the often-repeated tale the two great

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morals that riches are the only true source of happiness and power, and that it is lawful

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and just to compass their acquisition by all means short of felony."

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Okay, so we've got a city mouse and a country mouse.

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The younger "gleaned from thence nothing," in other words... he didn't really learn anything

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from his father's failures or uncle's successes.

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He was content to be a bumpkin, "attaching himself to the quiet routine of a country life."

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So... he probably had his fill of pigs and chickens and whatnot.

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The older brother, on the other hand, deduced that "riches are the only true source of happiness

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and power," and that it is "lawful and just to compass their acquisition by all means short of felony."

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In English... do whatever it takes to acquire as much money as possible, as long as you're

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not breaking the law.

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Of course, as we all know, many fabulously wealthy people don't even let that stop them...

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Looking over our answer choices, there's only one that says roughly what we just did...

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Answer B: The younger learned to live in a quiet routine, while the elder learned to

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pursue wealth.

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Guess we know who will be staying in whose guest house above the garage in about 10 years...

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