| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: probably ensure a long life to this abuse; and as you already know,
one franc fifty centimes from this item found its way into the
banker's pockets in the shape of Doublon's rebate.
"Bank charges one-half per cent," runs the third item, which appears
upon the ingenious plea that if a banker has not received payment, he
has for all practical purposes discounted a bill. And although the
contrary may be the case, if you fail to receive a thousand francs, it
seems to be very much the same thing as if you had paid them away.
Everybody who has discounted a bill knows that he has to pay more than
the six per cent fixed by law; for a small percentage appears under
the humble title of "charges," representing a premium on the financial
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: never mentioned? and how came it to you in the retirement of your
clerical parlour?
But I must not even seem to deceive you. This scandal, when I read
it in your letter, was not new to me. I had heard it once before;
and I must tell you how. There came to Samoa a man from Honolulu;
he, in a public-house on the beach, volunteered the statement that
Damien had "contracted the disease from having connection with the
female lepers"; and I find a joy in telling you how the report was
welcomed in a public-house. A man sprang to his feet; I am not at
liberty to give his name, but from what I heard I doubt if you
would care to have him to dinner in Beretania Street. "You
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: Here is what the king did, in the words of an ocular witness:--
"The king called an assembly at Lyon of all the princes of his
blood, all the knights of his order, and other great personages of
the kingdom; also the legal and papal nuncio, the cardinals who
were at his court, together with the ambassadors of England,
Scotland, Portugal, Venice, Ferrara, and others; also all the
princes and noble strangers, both Italian and German, who were
then residing at his court in great numbers. These all being
assembled, he caused to be read to them, in presence of each
other, from beginning to end, the trial of the unhappy man who
poisoned Monseigneur the late dauphin,--with all the
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