| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: shall soon be in the government."
"You!"
"Why shouldn't I be the Baron Gaudissart, peer of France? Haven't they
twice elected Monsieur Popinot as deputy from the fourth
arrondissement? He dines with Louis Phillippe. There's Finot; he is
going to be, they say, a member of the Council. Suppose they send me
as ambassador to London? I tell you I'd nonplus those English! No man
ever got the better of Gaudissart, the illustrious Gaudissart, and
nobody ever will. Yes, I say it! no one ever outwitted me, and no one
can--in any walk of life, politics or impolitics, here or elsewhere.
But, for the time being, I must give myself wholly to the capitalists;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: the grass is so green."
God said, "Nothing grows in the garden they are making."
We stood looking; and I saw them working among the bushes, digging holes,
but in them they set nothing; and when they had covered them with sticks
and earth each went a way off and sat behind the bushes watching; and I
noticed that as each walked he set his foot down carefully looking where he
trod. I said to God, "What are they doing?"
God said, "Making pitfalls into which their fellows may sink."
I said to God, "Why do they do it?"
God said, "Because each thinks that when his brother falls he will rise."
I said to God, "How will he rise?"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: their interests, and their affairs are better and more cheaply looked
after by him than they were in the old time by separate agents for
each firm. For instance, he has so completely put a stop to
competition that he has absolute control of the auction sales; the
crown and the State are both dependent on him. Their timber is sold
under the hammer and falls invariably to Gaubertin's dealers; in fact,
no others attempt now to bid against them. Last year Monsieur
Mariotte, of Auxerre, urged by the commissioner of domains, did
attempt to compete with Gaubertin. At first, Gaubertin let him buy the
standing wood at the usual prices; but when it came to cutting it, the
Avonnais workmen asked such enormous prices that Monsieur Mariotte was
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