| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: "Then why do they call you 'the Doge'?" I asked.
"Oh, it is a joke. I am a Venetian noble, and I might have been a doge
like any one else."
"What is your name?"
"Here, in Paris, I am Pere Canet," he said. "It was the only way of
spelling my name on the register. But in Italy I am Marco Facino Cane,
Prince of Varese."
"What, are you descended from the great /condottiere/ Facino Cane,
whose lands won by the sword were taken by the Dukes of Milan?"
"/E vero/," returned he. "His son's life was not safe under the
Visconti; he fled to Venice, and his name was inscribed on the Golden
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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: psychology, treatment of life, and treatment of literature are
concerned are within the reach of the very meanest capacity and the
most uncultivated mind. It is too difficult, because to meet such
requirements the artist would have to do violence to his
temperament, would have to write not for the artistic joy of
writing, but for the amusement of half-educated people, and so
would have to suppress his individualism, forget his culture,
annihilate his style, and surrender everything that is valuable in
him. In the case of the drama, things are a little better: the
theatre-going public like the obvious, it is true, but they do not
like the tedious; and burlesque and farcical comedy, the two most
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: privately married to the illustrious Gaudissart, a rumor which that
individual did not deny. To maintain her supremacy, Jenny kept him to
the performance of innumerable small attentions, and threatened
continually to turn him off if he omitted the least of them. She now
ordered him to write to her from every town, and render a minute
account of all his proceedings.
"How many 'Children' will it take to furnish my chamber?" she asked,
throwing off her shawl and sitting down by a good fire.
"I get five sous for each subscriber."
"Delightful! And is it with five sous that you expect to make me rich?
Perhaps you are like the Wandering Jew with your pockets full of
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