| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: nothing."
"I am so poor! . . ." began Magus. "I want the pictures simply for
their own sake, simply and solely for the love of art, my dear lady."
"I can understand that love, sonny, you are so dried up. But if you do
not promise me sixteen thousand francs now, before Remonencq here, I
shall want twenty to-morrow."
"Sixteen; I promise," returned the Jew, frightened by the woman's
rapacity.
La Cibot turned to Remonencq.
"What oath can a Jew swear?" she inquired.
"You may trust him," replied the marine store-dealer. "He is as honest
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: Then he said:
"I think it is too delicate a matter to--to--I believe I would rather
write it or whisper it to you, and let you decide for yourself whether
you want it talked out or not."
"That will answer," said Luigi. "Write it."
Wilson wrote something on a slip of paper and handed it to Luigi,
who read it to himself and said to Tom:
"Unfold your slip and read it, Mr. Driscoll."
Tom said:
"'IT WAS PROPHESIED THAT I WOULD KILL A MAN. IT CAME TRUE
BEFORE THE YEAR WAS OUT.'"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: creatures that they were. Oscar had one love only: through all his days
whatever he might forget, he would remember himself; through all his
days he would make knowledge show that self off. Thank heaven, all the
poor students in Harvard College were not Oscars! I loved some of them
as much as I loved Bertie and Billy. So there is no black eye about it.
Pity Oscar, if you like; but don't be so mushy as to admire him as he
stepped along in the night, holding his notes, full of his knowledge,
thinking of Bertie and Billy, conscious of virtue, and smiling his
smile. They were not conscious of any virtue, were Bertie and Billy,
nor were they smiling. They were solemnly eating up together a box of
handsome strawberries and sucking the juice from their reddened thumbs.
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