| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: its permanent inhabitants.
II
Jacques dropped into his place and filled it as if it had been made
for him. There was something in his disposition that seemed to fit
him for just the role that was vacant in the social drama of the
settlement. It was not a serious, important, responsible part, like
that of a farmer, or a store-keeper, or a professional hunter. It
was rather an addition to the regular programme of existence,
something unannounced and voluntary, and therefore not weighted with
too heavy responsibilities. There was a touch of the transient and
uncertain about it. He seemed like a perpetual visitor; and yet he
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: Mademoiselle Gamard's capacities and virtues as mistress of a
household were great. He was sure of flattering the old maid's vanity
by praising the skill with which she made or prepared her preserves
and pickles and pates and other gastronomical inventions. To cap all,
the wily canon never left his landlady's yellow salon after dinner
without remarking that there was no house in Tours where he could get
such good coffee as that he had just imbibed.
Thanks to this thorough understanding of Mademoiselle Gamard's
character, and to the science of existence which he had put in
practice for the last twelve years, no matter of discussion on the
internal arrangements of the household had ever come up between them.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: probation officer at Boston, imprisonment was remitted in the
county of Suffolk (including Boston) to 322 persons in 1879 and to
880 in 1888; whilst the number officially recorded for the
following year was 994. In the course of ten years the probation
officer inquired into the cases of 27,052 persons liable to
supervision. Of these, 7,251 were put on probation, and 580 were
deprived of the benefit of the law.
The grounds on which the probation system was applied in
Massachusetts were strikingly different from the circumstances
under which conditional sentences were recorded in Belgium. Thus
in Boston there were put on probation, between 1879 and 1888,
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