| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: them that they might for ever clear themselves of doubtful
appearances. But for the rest, while he felt his old affectionate
respect for his master, he could recognize no claim to be removed
from his present position. Had she lived, said the heartbroken
youth, he would gladly have consented to accept any fortune which
her love might bestow, because he felt that his own love and the
devotion of a life might repay it. But there was nothing now that
he could give in exchange. For his services he was amply paid; his
feelings towards Lieschen's parents must continue what they had
ever been. In vain Lehfeldt pleaded, in vain many friends argued.
Franz remained respectfully firm in his refusal.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: full of gold. I give up all to you--"
"Come, come, crony," replied Louis XI., who was partly touched by the
sight of this strange suffering, "we shall find your treasure some
fine night, and the sight of such riches will give you heart to live.
I will come back in the course of this week--"
"As you please, sire."
At that answer the king, who had made a few steps toward the door of
the chamber, turned round abruptly. The two men looked at each other
with an expression that neither pen nor pencil can reproduce.
"Adieu, my crony," said Louis XI. at last in a curt voice, pushing up
his cap.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: her faculties, rather than that any risk should be run of the bond of
desire and emotion between the two sexual halves of humanity being severed?
If the race is to decay and become extinct on earth, might it not as well
be through the parasitism and decay of woman, as through the decay of the
sexual instinct?
It is not easy to reply with rationality, or even gravity, to a
supposition, which appears to be based on the conception that a sudden and
entire subversion of the deepest of those elements on which human, and even
animal, life on the globe is based, is possible from so inadequate a cause:
and it might well be passed silently, were it not that, under some form or
other, this argument frequently recurs, now in a more rational and then in
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