| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: the use of argument? He produced a tape-line, made me help
him to measure the tree at the level of the ground, and
entered the figures in a large and filthy pocket-book, all
with the gravity of Solomon. He then thanked me profusely,
remarking that such little services were due between
countrymen; shook hands with me, "for add lang syne," as he
said; and took himself solemnly away, radiating dirt and
humbug as he went.
A month or two after this encounter of mine, there came a
Scot to Sacramento - perhaps from Aberdeen. Anyway, there
never was any one more Scotch in this wide world. He could
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: hadn't a proper place to receive him she never invited her friend.
As much as himself she knew the world of London, but from an
undiscussed instinct of privacy they haunted the region not mapped
on the social chart. On the return she always made him leave her
at the same corner. She looked with him, as a pretext for a pause,
at the depressed things in suburban shop-fronts; and there was
never a word he had said to her that she hadn't beautifully
understood. For long ages he never knew her name, any more than
she had ever pronounced his own; but it was not their names that
mattered, it was only their perfect practice and their common need.
These things made their whole relation so impersonal that they
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: is extremely level to the very roots of the hills; only here
and there a hillock, crowned with pines, rises like the
barrow of some chieftain famed in war; and right against one
of these hillocks is the Springs Hotel - is or was; for since
I was there the place has been destroyed by fire, and has
risen again from its ashes. A lawn runs about the house, and
the lawn is in its turn surrounded by a system of little
five-roomed cottages, each with a verandah and a weedy palm
before the door. Some of the cottages are let to residents,
and these are wreathed in flowers. The rest are occupied by
ordinary visitors to the Hotel; and a very pleasant way this
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