| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: person on whom he was operating,--"a grocer, or something of that
kind. But if we devoted ourselves to art only, we should lie in
Bicetre, mad!" and he turned back with an inimitable gesture to his
client, after saying to Regulus, "Prepare monsieur, he is evidently an
artist."
"A journalist," said Bixiou.
Hearing that word, Marius gave two or three strokes of the comb to the
ordinary head and flung himself upon Gazonal, taking Regulus by the
arm at the instant that the pupil was about to begin the operation of
the little scissors.
"I will take charge of monsieur. Look, monsieur," he said to the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: your opinion on the origin of the Samoan race, just to complete the
favour.
They both say that you are looking well, and I suppose I may
conclude from that that you are feeling passably. I wish I was.
Do not suppose from this that I am ill in body; it is the numskull
that I complain of. And when that is wrong, as you must be very
keenly aware, you begin every day with a smarting disappointment,
which is not good for the temper. I am in one of the humours when
a man wonders how any one can be such an ass as to embrace the
profession of letters, and not get apprenticed to a barber or keep
a baked-potato stall. But I have no doubt in the course of a week,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: from hut to hut in search of a little alcohol, a kettle of
boiled water and some rags. With unfailing kindness, Ca-
milla provided him with all that he wanted.
As he began washing his foot, she sat beside him,
and, with typical mountaineer's curiosity, inquired:
"Tell me, who learned you how to cure people? Why
did you boil that water? Why did you boil the rags?
Look, look, how careful you are about everything! And
what did you put on your hands? Really. . . . And why
did you pour on alcohol? I just knew alcohol was good
to rub on when you had a bellyache, but . . . Oh, I
 The Underdogs |