| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw: were not in earnest.
PERCIVAL. Oh, this is really the limit. _[Turning desperately to
Gunner]_ Sir: I appeal to you. As a gentleman! as a man of honor!
as a man bound to stand by another man! You were in that Turkish
bath. You saw how it began. Could any man have behaved more
correctly than I did? Is there a shadow of foundation for the
accusations brought against me?
GUNNER. _[sorely perplexed]_ Well, what do you want me to say?
JOHNNY. He has said what he had to say already, hasnt he? Read that
paper.
GUNNER. When I tell the truth, you make me go back on it. And now
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: at a single poker sitting. Most of them drank a good deal.
After a few months' experience Jeff discovered that while the
gathering of news tends to sharpen the wits it makes also for the
superficial. Alertness, cleverness, persistence, a nose for news,
and a surface accuracy were the chief qualities demanded of him by
the office. He had only to look around him to see that the
profession was full of keen-eyed, nimble-witted old-young men who
had never attempted to synthesize the life they were supposed to
be recording and interpreting. While at work they were always
in a hurry, for to-day's news is dead to-morrow. They wrote on the
run, without time for thought or reflection. Knowing beyond their
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: too there must be reserves;) they do not intrude upon one another, and they
mutually rejoice in any good which happens to either of them, though it may
be to the loss of the other. They may live apart and have little
intercourse, but when they meet, the old tie is as strong as ever--
according to the common saying, they find one another always the same. The
greatest good of friendship is not daily intercourse, for circumstances
rarely admit of this; but on the great occasions of life, when the advice
of a friend is needed, then the word spoken in season about conduct, about
health, about marriage, about business,--the letter written from a distance
by a disinterested person who sees with clearer eyes may be of inestimable
value. When the heart is failing and despair is setting in, then to hear
 Lysis |