| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of Man by Oscar Wilde: 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
unnecessary in England. Of course, the public are very reckless in
their use of the word. That they should have called Wordsworth an
immoral poet, was only to be expected. Wordsworth was a poet. But
that they should have called Charles Kingsley an immoral novelist
is extraordinary. Kingsley's prose was not of a very fine quality.
Still, there is the word, and they use it as best they can. An
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: At an East Side hotel we gets acquainted with Romulus G. Atterbury, a
man with the finest head for financial operations I ever saw. It was
all bald and glossy except for gray side whiskers. Seeing that head
behind an office railing, and you'd deposit a million with it without
a receipt. This Atterbury was well dressed, though he ate seldom; and
the synopsis of his talk would make the conversation of a siren sound
like a cab driver's kick. He said he used to be a member of the Stock
Exchange, but some of the big capitalists got jealous and formed a
ring that forced him to sell his seat.
Atterbury got to liking me and Buck and he begun to throw on the
canvas for us some of the schemes that had caused his hair to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: The Unseen
Death went up the hall
Unseen by every one,
Trailing twilight robes
Past the nurse and the nun.
He paused at every door
And listened to the breath
Of those who did not know
How near they were to Death.
Death went up the hall
Unseen by nurse and nun;
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