| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: to suspect, when he goes out with the horses to exercise them
or to take a message, that he stops about talking to his acquaintances,
or goes into houses where he has no business, leaving the horses outside?"
"No, sir, certainly not; and if anybody has been saying that about James,
I don't believe it, and I don't mean to believe it unless I have it
fairly proved before witnesses; it's not for me to say who has been trying
to take away James' character, but I will say this, sir, that a steadier,
pleasanter, honester, smarter young fellow I never had in this stable.
I can trust his word and I can trust his work; he is gentle and clever
with the horses, and I would rather have them in charge with him
than with half the young fellows I know of in laced hats and liveries;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: was naturally attributed to a known writer whose works bore the same
character; and the name once appended easily obtained authority. A
tendency may also be observed to blend the works and opinions of the master
with those of his scholars. To a later Platonist, the difference between
Plato and his imitators was not so perceptible as to ourselves. The
Memorabilia of Xenophon and the Dialogues of Plato are but a part of a
considerable Socratic literature which has passed away. And we must
consider how we should regard the question of the genuineness of a
particular writing, if this lost literature had been preserved to us.
These considerations lead us to adopt the following criteria of
genuineness: (1) That is most certainly Plato's which Aristotle attributes
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: her departure from Nantes, about nine o'clock of a Monday night, a
kind old conductor of the Messageries-royales, took Pierrette by the
hand, and while the porters were discharging in the Grand'Rue the
packages and passengers for Provins, he led the little girl, whose
only baggage was a bundle containing two dresses, two chemises, and
two pairs of stockings, to Mademoiselle Rogron's house, which was
pointed out to him by the director at the coach office.
"Good-evening, mademoiselle and the rest of the company. I've brought
you a cousin, and here she is; and a nice little girl too, upon my
word. You have forty-seven francs to pay me, and sign my book."
Mademoiselle Sylvie and her brother were dumb with pleasure and
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