| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: young man like you,--commerce, government employment, the licensed
professions, or military service. All forms of commerce need capital,
and we have none to give you. In place of capital, a young man can
only give devotion and his capacity. But commerce also demands the
utmost discretion, and your conduct yesterday proves that you lack it.
To enter a government office, you must go through a long probation by
the help of influence, and you have just alienated the only protector
that we had,--a most powerful one. Besides, suppose you were to meet
with some extraordinary help, by which a young man makes his way
promptly either in business or in the public employ, where could you
find the money to live and clothe yourself during the time that you
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and shabbier with every
minute; until a great church with a clock, and a wooden bridge over
the river, indicated the central quarters of the town.
Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for one thing:
that the majority of the inhabitants have a private opinion that
they can speak English, which is not justified by fact. This gave
a kind of haziness to our intercourse. As for the Hotel de la
Navigation, I think it is the worst feature of the place. It
boasts of a sanded parlour, with a bar at one end, looking on the
street; and another sanded parlour, darker and colder, with an
empty bird-cage and a tricolour subscription box by way of sole
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: combers were cached upon the beach; the dory was taken aboard,
gaskets were cast off, and hatches battened down.
At high tide, all hands straining upon the warp, the schooner was
floated off, and under touch of the lightest airs drew almost
imperceptibly away from the land. They were quite an hour
crawling out to the heads of the bay. But here the breeze was
freshening. Moran took the wheel; the flying-jib and staysail
were set; the wake began to whiten under the schooner's stern, the
forefoot sang; the Pacific opened out more and more; and by 12:30
o'clock Moran put the wheel over, and, as the schooner's bow swung
to the northward, cried to Wilbur:
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