| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: DO IN RUSSIA
We come now to the Communist plans for reconstruction.
We have seen, in the first two chapters, something of the
appalling paralysis which is the most striking factor in the
economic problem to-day. We have seen how Russia is
suffering from a lack of things and from a lack of labor, how
these two shortages react on each other, and how nothing
but a vast improvement in transport can again set in motion
what was one of the great food-producing machines of the
world. We have also seen something of the political
organization which, with far wider ambitions before it, is at
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: first act, with their grotesque phrases and their ridiculous words.
But when the play is over one realises that the laughter of the
witches in 'Macbeth' is as terrible as the laughter of madness in
'Lear,' more terrible than the laughter of Iago in the tragedy of
the Moor. No spectator of art needs a more perfect mood of
receptivity than the spectator of a play. The moment he seeks to
exercise authority he becomes the avowed enemy of Art and of
himself. Art does not mind. It is he who suffers.
With the novel it is the same thing. Popular authority and the
recognition of popular authority are fatal. Thackeray's 'Esmond'
is a beautiful work of art because he wrote it to please himself.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Witch, et. al by Anton Chekhov: glad to die; Fyokla, on the other hand, found all this life to
her taste: the poverty, the uncleanliness, and the incessant
quarrelling. She ate what was given her without discrimination;
slept anywhere, on whatever came to hand. She would empty the
slops just at the porch, would splash them out from the doorway,
and then walk barefoot through the puddle. And from the very
first day she took a dislike to Olga and Nikolay just because
they did not like this life.
"We shall see what you'll find to eat here, you Moscow gentry!"
she said malignantly. "We shall see!"
One morning, it was at the beginning of September, Fyokla,
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