| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: as the phrase is, in his pocket. Ten thousand francs had never
before seemed to him so heavy a load to carry, and to lighten
the weight of his good luck by lending fifty pounds to a less
fortunate fellow-player was an operation that not only gratified
his good-nature but strongly commended itself to his conscience.
His conscience, however, made its conditions. "My dear Longueville,"
Lovelock went on, "I have always gone in for family feeling,
early associations, and all that sort of thing. That 's what made
me confide my difficulties to Dovedale. But, upon my honor,
you remind me of the good Samaritan, or that sort of person;
you are fonder of me than my own brother! I 'll take fifty
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: His next remark was transparent enough. "Do you approve of young ladies
smoking?"
I met his question with another: "What reasons can be urged against it?"
He was quick. "Then you don't mind it?" There was actual hope in the way
he rushed at this.
I laughed. "I didn't say I didn't mind it." (As a matter of fact I do
mind it; but it seemed best not to say so to him.)
He fell off again. "I certainly saw very nice people doing it up there."
I filled this out. "You'll see very nice people doing it everywhere."
"Not in Kings Port! At least, not my sort of people!" He stiffly
proclaimed this.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: and chain and some linen. Instead of depositing the three thousand
francs in Paris, as she was advised by the notary of the wine-merchant
who had left it her, the old woman insisted on keeping it by her. In
the first place, she had never seen so much money of her own, and then
she distrusted everybody in every kind of affairs, as most common and
country folk do. After long discussion with a wine-merchant of
Nanterre, a relation of her own and of the wine-merchant who had left
her the money, the widow decided on buying an annuity, on selling her
house at Nanterre, and living in the town of Saint-Germain.
The house she was living in, with a good-sized garden enclosed by a
slight wooden fence, was the poor sort of dwelling usually built by
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