| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: prisons were among the crimes of 1789, and it is enough only to see
the cells where the Queen and Madame Elizabeth were incarcerated to
conceive a horror of old judicial proceedings.
In our day, though philanthropy has brought incalculable mischief on
society, it has produced some good for the individual. It is to
Napoleon that we owe our Criminal Code; and this, even more than the
Civil Code--which still urgently needs reform on some points--will
remain one of the greatest monuments of his short reign. This new view
of criminal law put an end to a perfect abyss of misery. Indeed, it
may be said that, apart from the terrible moral torture which men of
the better classes must suffer when they find themselves in the power
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Baby Mine by Margaret Mayo: Jimmy was almost smiling.
"As for Zoie," continued Alfred, "she can stay right here and go
as far as she likes."
"Not with me," thought Jimmy.
"But," shrieked Alfred, with renewed emphasis, "I'm going to find
out who the FELLOW is. I'll have THAT satisfaction!"
Jimmy's spirits fell.
"Henri knows the head-waiter of every restaurant in this town,"
said Alfred, "that is, every one where she'd be likely to go; and
he says he'd recognise the man she lunched with if he saw him
again."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: with it. What could have been clearer indeed than the attitude of
recognising perfectly what a world of trouble The Coxon Fund would
in future save us, and of yet liking better to face a continuance
of that trouble than see, and in fact contribute to, a deviation
from attainable bliss in the life of two other persons in whom I
was deeply interested? Suddenly, at the end of twenty minutes,
there was projected across this clearness the image of a massive
middle-aged man seated on a bench under a tree, with sad far-
wandering eyes and plump white hands folded on the head of a stick-
-a stick I recognised, a stout gold-headed staff that I had given
him in devoted days. I stopped short as he turned his face to me,
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