| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: said or made a beautiful thing that is new; when they describe a
work as grossly immoral, they mean that the artist has said or made
a beautiful thing that is true. The former expression has
reference to style; the latter to subject-matter. But they
probably use the words very vaguely, as an ordinary mob will use
ready-made paving-stones. There is not a single real poet or
prose-writer of this century, for instance, on whom the British
public have not solemnly conferred diplomas of immorality, and
these diplomas practically take the place, with us, of what in
France, is the formal recognition of an Academy of Letters, and
fortunately make the establishment of such an institution quite
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: "Yes," said Babo; "really and truly."
"Humph!" said the king. "I should like to have advice that is
worth as much as that. Now, how much will you sell your advice to
me for?"
"How much will you give?" said Babo.
"Well," said the king, "let me have it for a day on trial, and at
the end of that time I will pay you what it is worth."
"Very well," said Babo, "that is a bargain"; and so he lent the
king his piece of advice for one day on trial.
Now the chief councillor and some others had laid a plot against
the king's life, and that morning it had been settled that when
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: seven fruitless attempts he succeeded in penetrating into the Count's
presence. Suzon, the old man-servant, albeit he was by no means in his
novitiate, at last mistook the visitor for a petitioner, come to
propose a thousand crowns if Maxime would obtain a license to sell
postage stamps for a young lady. Suzon, without the slightest
suspicion of the little scamp, a thoroughbred Paris street-boy into
whom prudence had been rubbed by repeated personal experience of the
police-courts, induced his master to receive him. Can you see the man
of business, with an uneasy eye, a bald forehead, and scarcely any
hair on his head, standing in his threadbare jacket and muddy boots--"
"What a picture of a Dun!" cried Lousteau.
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