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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: good-humored deference. Stepan Arkadyvitch moved quickly, as
ever, to his place, shook hands with his colleagues, and sat
down. He made a joke or two, and talked just as much as was
consistend with due decroum, and began work. No one knew better
than Stepan Arkadyevitch how to hit on the exact line between
freedom, simplicity, and official stiffness necessary for the
agreeable conduct of business. A secretary, with the
good-humored deference common to every one in Stepan
Arkadyevitch's office, cae up with papers, and began to speak in
the familiar and easy tone which had been introduced by Stepan
Arkadyevitch.
 Anna Karenina |