| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: him." Then she gaily but all gently added: "He said it wasn't
fair to you. But I think I could manage two."
"So could I," Paul Overt returned, stretching the point a little to
meet her. In reality his appreciation of the occasion was so
completely an appreciation of the woman before him that another
figure in the scene, even so esteemed a one as St. George, might
for the hour have appealed to him vainly. He left the house
wondering what the great man had meant by its not being fair to
him; and, still more than that, whether he had actually stayed away
from the force of that idea. As he took his course through the
Sunday solitude of Manchester Square, swinging his stick and with a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: from the vicarage quarter, which was now graciously overcome.--
After a few whispers, indeed, which placed it beyond a guess,
Mrs. Elton, speaking louder, said,
"Yes, here I am, my good friend; and here I have been so long,
that anywhere else I should think it necessary to apologise;
but, the truth is, that I am waiting for my lord and master.
He promised to join me here, and pay his respects to you."
"What! are we to have the pleasure of a call from Mr. Elton?--
That will be a favour indeed! for I know gentlemen do not like
morning visits, and Mr. Elton's time is so engaged."
"Upon my word it is, Miss Bates.--He really is engaged from morning
 Emma |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: richer sort had made a pastime of the same pursuit, 'which was not
unamusing.' And hence bitter enmities had arisen; the professors of
knowledge had revenged themselves by calling him a villainous corrupter of
youth, and by repeating the commonplaces about atheism and materialism and
sophistry, which are the stock-accusations against all philosophers when
there is nothing else to be said of them.
The second accusation he meets by interrogating Meletus, who is present and
can be interrogated. 'If he is the corrupter, who is the improver of the
citizens?' (Compare Meno.) 'All men everywhere.' But how absurd, how
contrary to analogy is this! How inconceivable too, that he should make
the citizens worse when he has to live with them. This surely cannot be
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