| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: would have gone to the cross for him; and when it came to trial he was
gradually pictured before me, by undeniable probation, in the light of
so gross, so cold-blooded, and so black-hearted a villain, that I had a
mind to have cast my brief upon the table. I was then boiling against
the man with even a more tropical temperature than I had been boiling
for him. But I said to myself: `No, you have taken up his case; and
because you have changed your mind it must not be suffered to let drop.
All that rich tide of eloquence that you prepared last night with so
much enthusiasm is out of place, and yet you must not desert him, you
must say something.' So I said something, and I got him off. It made
my reputation. But an experience of that kind is formative. A man must
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde: LORD DARLINGTON. [Rising from R. table, where he has been writing
letters.] They always do find us bad!
DUMBY. I don't think we are bad. I think we are all good, except
Tuppy.
LORD DARLINGTON. No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are
looking at the stars. [Sits down at C. table.]
DUMBY. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the
stars? Upon my word, you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.
CECIL GRAHAM. Too romantic! You must be in love. Who is the
girl?
LORD DARLINGTON. The woman I love is not free, or thinks she
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: impressions without feeling the youthful need of relating
them to others. It was the girl in the opposite seat who
had roused in him the dormant habit of comparison. She was
distinguished from the daughters of wealth by her avowed
acquaintance with the real business of living, a familiarity
as different as possible from their theoretical proficiency;
yet it seemed to Darrow that her experience had made her
free without hardness and self-assured without
assertiveness.
The rush into Amiens, and the flash of the station lights
into their compartment, broke Miss Viner's sleep, and
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