The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: promoted: there was truly even in the strain of his experience
something that glossed over, something that salved and simplified,
all the rest of consciousness. He circulated, talked, renewed,
loosely and pleasantly, old relations - met indeed, so far as he
could, new expectations and seemed to make out on the whole that in
spite of the career, of such different contacts, which he had
spoken of to Miss Staverton as ministering so little, for those who
might have watched it, to edification, he was positively rather
liked than not. He was a dim secondary social success - and all
with people who had truly not an idea of him. It was all mere
surface sound, this murmur of their welcome, this popping of their
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: Gotha had provided her for so small a consideration, and observed that
for myself I supposed I should continue to rest content with the thought
that in our enlightened Republic every American was himself a sovereign.
But that, said the lady, after giving me another look, is so different
from Boadicea! And to this I perfectly agreed. Later I had the pleasure
to hear in a roundabout way that she had pronounced me one of the most
agreeable young men in society, though sophisticated. I have not
cherished this against her; my gift of humor puzzles many who can see
only my refinement and my scrupulous attention to dress.
Yes, indeed, I counted myself proof against all Boadiceas. But you have
noticed--have you not?--how, whenever a few people gather together and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: basket-carriage.[7] Thus it was that by the adjustment of expenditure
to income he was never driven to the commission of any unjust deed for
money's sake. And yet if it be a fine thing to hold a fortress
impregnable to attck, I count it a greater glory that a man should
hold the fortress of his soul inviolable against the assaults of
riches, pleasures, fears.
[5] Or, "of all such external needs."
[6] See Herod. vi. 52.
[7] See Plut. "Ages." xix. (Clough, iv. p. 23); the words {e thugater
autou} were supplied from this passage by Casaubon.
IX
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