| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: of these reconciliations he received the formal promise of a place in
the Academy of Belles-lettres on the first vacancy. "It would pay," he
said, "the keep of a horse." His position, so far as it went, was a
good one, and Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx flourished in it like a
tree planted in good soil. He could satisfy his vices, his caprices,
his virtues and his defects.
The following were the toils of his life. He was obliged to choose,
among five or six daily invitations, the house where he could be sure
of the best dinner. Every morning he went to his minister's morning
reception to amuse that official and his wife, and to pet their
children. Then he worked an hour or two; that is to say, he lay back
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: laws and social condition, had had a different origin, and had
been transported into another country, I do not question that
they would have had a literature. Even as they now are, I am
convinced that they will ultimately have one; but its character
will be different from that which marks the American literary
productions of our time, and that character will be peculiarly
its own. Nor is it impossible to trace this character
beforehand.
I suppose an aristocratic people amongst whom letters are
cultivated; the labors of the mind, as well as the affairs of
state, are conducted by a ruling class in society. The literary
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Economist by Xenophon: play. But you have never once invited me to come and witness such an
incident as those we were speaking of just now.
Crit. And so I seem to you ridiculous?[7]
[7] Or, "a comic character in the performance." Soc. "Not so comic as
you must appear to yourself (i.e. with your keen sense of the
ludicrous)."
Soc. Far more ridiculous to yourself, I warrant. But now let me point
out to you another contrast: between certain people whose dealing with
horses has brought them to the brink of poverty, and certain others
who have found in the same pursuit the road to affluence,[8] and have
a right besides to plume themselves upon their gains.[9]
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