| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: then feel all the way down my legs, and give me a hard feel
of the skin and flesh, and then try my paces. It was wonderful
what a difference there was in the way these things were done.
Some did it in a rough, offhand way, as if one was only a piece of wood;
while others would take their hands gently over one's body,
with a pat now and then, as much as to say, "By your leave."
Of course I judged a good deal of the buyers by their manners to myself.
There was one man, I thought, if he would buy me, I should be happy.
He was not a gentleman, nor yet one of the loud, flashy sort
that call themselves so. He was rather a small man, but well made,
and quick in all his motions. I knew in a moment by the way he handled me,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: was. Her knowledge simply settled it; he would have been sure
enough by this time had she been wrong. There was that in his
situation, no doubt, that disposed him too much to see her as a
mere confidant, taking all her light for him from the fact--the
fact only--of her interest in his predicament; from her mercy,
sympathy, seriousness, her consent not to regard him as the
funniest of the funny. Aware, in fine, that her price for him was
just in her giving him this constant sense of his being admirably
spared, he was careful to remember that she had also a life of her
own, with things that might happen to HER, things that in
friendship one should likewise take account of. Something fairly
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: thou readest?"
"Surely, father," answered the boy; "it was taught me by
the masters at Treves; and we have read this epistle from
beginning to end, so that I almost know it by heart."
Then he began to repeat the passage, turning away from the
page as if to show his skill.
But Winfried stopped him with a friendly lifting of the
hand.
"Not so, my son; that was not my meaning. When we pray,
we speak to God. When we read, God speaks to us. I ask
whether thou hast heard what He has said to thee in the common
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