| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: and gentleness.'
"'How little,' said I, 'did I expect that yesterday it should have
fallen upon me!'
"'Misfortunes,' answered the Arab, 'should always be expected. If
the eye of hostility could learn reverence or pity, excellence like
yours had been exempt from injury. But the angels of affliction
spread their toils alike for the virtuous and the wicked, for the
mighty and the mean. Do not be disconsolate; I am not one of the
lawless and cruel rovers of the desert; I know the rules of civil
life; I will fix your ransom, give a passport to your messenger,
and perform my stipulation with nice punctuality.'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: innocent dreamer, that civilization, by strangely complicating all
social conditions, absorbs for business, for interests, for pleasures,
thrice as much time as a less advanced society required for the same
purposes. Look at the savage in his hut; he hasn't anything to do.
Whereas we, with the Bourse, the opera, the newspapers, parliamentary
discussions, salons, elections, railways, the Cafe de Paris and the
National Guard--what time have we, if you please, to go to work?"
"Beautiful theory of a do-nothing!" cried Emile Blondet, laughing.
"No, my dear fellow, I am talking truth. The curfew no longer rings at
nine o'clock. Only last night my concierge Ravenouillet gave a party;
and I think I made a great mistake in not accepting the indirect
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: in puffs and clouds of dust at a hundred points amidst the grey;
but, indeed, I made a text of that and talked. There, you know,
was the rock, still beautiful, for all its scars, with its countless
windows and arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a thousand feet,
a vast carving of grey, broken by vine-clad terraces, and lemon
and orange groves, and masses of agave and prickly pear, and puffs
of almond blossom. And out under the archway that is built over
the Piccola Marina other boats were coming; and as we came round
the cape and within sight of the mainland, another little string of
boats came into view, driving before the wind towards the southwest.
In a little while a multitude had come out, the remoter just little
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