| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: she can change her tune into the husband's. Her morality has
been, too often, an affair of precept and conformity. But in
the case of a bachelor who has enjoyed some measure both of
privacy and freedom, his moral judgments have been passed in
some accordance with his nature. His sins were always sins in
his own sight; he could then only sin when he did some act
against his clear conviction; the light that he walked by was
obscure, but it was single. Now, when two people of any grit
and spirit put their fortunes into one, there succeeds to this
comparative certainty a huge welter of competing
jurisdictions. It no longer matters so much how life appears
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: left the ministry yesterday. I need not go and inquire; for when I
took your article to the newspaper office I met a young abbe who
brought in a letter from the Grand Almoner, before which you yourself
would have had to bow."
"Dutocq, you have a grudge against Monsieur Rabourdin, and it isn't
right; for he has twice saved you from being turned out. However, we
are not masters of our own feelings; we sometimes hate our
benefactors. Only, remember this; if you show the slightest treachery
to Rabourdin, without my permission, it will be your ruin. As to that
newspaper, let the Grand Almoner subscribe as largely as we do, if he
wants its services. Here we are at the end of the year; the matter of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: not t'e time to spare you - n'est-ce-pas?" - Wentworth's hand touched
Wilding on the shoulder. He was standing with head slightly bowed, his
brows knit in thought. He looked round at the touch, sighed and smiled.
Belmont held the coat for his master, who slipped into it, and flung at
Wilding what was intended for a consolatory sop. "It is fortune de
guerre, Mistaire Wilding. I am desolate'; but it is fortune of t'e war."
"May it be less fortunate for your lordship, then," said Wilding dryly,
and was on the point of turning, when Ruth's voice came in a loud cry to
startle him and to quicken his pulses.
"My lord!" It was a cry of utter anguish.
Feversham, settling his gold-laced coat comfortably to his figure,
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