| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: pleading tenderness.
The brown eyes searched Jim's soul.
"If you can show me it's worth while----"
The fingers tightened their grip in silence.
"Just give me a chance, Doc," he said at last, "and
I'll show you! I ain't never had a chance to really
know what was right and what was wrong. If I'd a lived
here with my old mother she'd have told me. You know
what it is to be a stray dog on the streets of New
York? Even then, I'd have kept straight if I hadn't
been robbed by a lawyer and his pal. I didn't know
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: the help of your sworn foes and antagonists, the Athenians, to his
native town of Sicyon, the first thing he did was to take up arms
against the governor from Thebes; but, finding himself powerless to
drive him from the acropolis, he collected money and betook himself
hither. Now, if it were proved that he had mustered armed bands to
attack you, I venture to say, you would have thanked me that I slew
him. What then, when he came furnished with vile moneys, to corrupt
you therewith, to bribe you to make him once more lord and master of
the state? How shall I, who dealt justice upon him, justly suffer
death at your hands? For to be worsted in arms implies injury
certainly, but of the body only: the defeated man is not proved to be
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: "Ah ca! is he subject to such attacks,--that master of yours?" said
Mistigris, addressing the porter.
"He has gone to fetch his feed from the stable," replied the porter,
well versed in all the usual tricks to keep passengers quiet.
"Well, after all," said Mistigris, "'art is long, but life is short'
--to Bichette."
At this particular epoch, a fancy for mutilating or transposing
proverbs reigned in the studios. It was thought a triumph to find
changes of letters, and sometimes of words, which still kept the
semblance of the proverb while giving it a fantastic or ridiculous
meaning.[*]
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