| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: garnish the parapets. Such occasions helped them to live, for
their books ran low very soon after the beginning of their
acquaintance. Pemberton had a good many in England, but he was
obliged to write to a friend and ask him kindly to get some fellow
to give him something for them.
If they had to relinquish that summer the advantage of the bracing
climate the young man couldn't but suspect this failure of the cup
when at their very lips to have been the effect of a rude jostle of
his own. This had represented his first blow-out, as he called it,
with his patrons; his first successful attempt - though there was
little other success about it - to bring them to a consideration of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: his desire is as the desire of the other, but weaker; he wants to see him,
touch him, kiss him, embrace him, and probably not long afterwards his
desire is accomplished. When they meet, the wanton steed of the lover has
a word to say to the charioteer; he would like to have a little pleasure in
return for many pains, but the wanton steed of the beloved says not a word,
for he is bursting with passion which he understands not;--he throws his
arms round the lover and embraces him as his dearest friend; and, when they
are side by side, he is not in a state in which he can refuse the lover
anything, if he ask him; although his fellow-steed and the charioteer
oppose him with the arguments of shame and reason. After this their
happiness depends upon their self-control; if the better elements of the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: renew the wonder by getting back, as he might put it, into his own
presence. That had quickened his steps and checked his delay. If
his visit was prompt it was because he had been separated so long
from the part of himself that alone he now valued.
It's accordingly not false to say that he reached his goal with a
certain elation and stood there again with a certain assurance.
The creature beneath the sod knew of his rare experience, so that,
strangely now, the place had lost for him its mere blankness of
expression. It met him in mildness--not, as before, in mockery; it
wore for him the air of conscious greeting that we find, after
absence, in things that have closely belonged to us and which seem
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