| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde: LADY BRACKNELL. [Pencil and note-book in hand.] I feel bound to
tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men,
although I have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has.
We work together, in fact. However, I am quite ready to enter your
name, should your answers be what a really affectionate mother
requires. Do you smoke?
JACK. Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.
LADY BRACKNELL. I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an
occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London
as it is. How old are you?
JACK. Twenty-nine.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: far as the foot of the ladder.
To have money is nothing; the self-made man only finds out all that he
lacks after six months of flatteries. Andoche Finot, the self-made man
in question, stiff, taciturn, cold, and dull-witted, possessed the
sort of spirit which will not shrink from groveling before any
creature that may be of use to him, and the cunning to be insolent
when he needs a man no longer. Like one of the grotesque figures in
the ballet in Gustave, he was a marquis behind, a boor in front. And
this high-priest of commerce had a following.
Emile Blondet, Journalist, with abundance of intellectual power,
reckless, brilliant, and indolent, could do anything that he chose,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: would be capable of doing anything!" and the fine was remorselessly
inflicted. Undoubtedly, if somewhat brutally, the magistrate yet gave true
voice to the modern view on the subject of excessive and reckless child-
bearing.)
Further, owing partly to the diminished demand for child-bearing, rising
from the extreme difficulty and expense of rearing and education, and to
many other complex social causes, to which we shall return later, millions
of women in our modern societies are so placed as to be absolutely
compelled to go through life not merely childless, but without sex
relationship in any form whatever; while another mighty army of women is
reduced by the dislocations of our civilisation to accepting sexual
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