| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: collectively for both sexes. Only where a consideration of sex
thrust itself upon them, beyond the possibility of evasion, did they
employ for the male and the female distinctive expressions. The
more intimate the relation of the object to man, the more imperative
the discriminating name. Hence human beings possessed a fair number
of such special appellatives; for a man is a palpably different sort
of person from his grandmother, and a mother-in-law from a wife.
But it is noteworthy that the artificial affinities of society were
as carefully differentiated as the distinctions due to sex, while
ancestral relationships were deemed more important than either.
Animals, though treated individually most humanely, are vouchsafed
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
Before this supreme mystery of Love:
Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
An angel with a lily in his hand,
And over both the white wings of a Dove.
FLORENCE.
Poem: Italia
Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen
Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride
From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide!
Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: fellow offers you dinner, you'd have to be made of wood to refuse
him. Of course, if I had had a trade--but I didn't have any. So
I went on the street--You know how it is."
"Tell us about it," said the doctor. "This gentleman is from the
country."
"Is that so?" said the girl. "I never supposed there was anyone
who didn't know about such things. Well, I took the part of a
little working-girl. A very simple dress--things I had made
especially for that--a little bundle in a black napkin carried in
my hand--so I walked along where the shops are. It's tiresome,
because to do it right, you have to patter along fast. Then I
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