| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Angler by Izaak Walton: twenty to one, and you shall see it done.
Venator. Ay, marry! Sir, now you talk like an artist, and I'll say you are
one, when I shall see you perform what you say you can do: but I yet
doubt it.
Piscator. You shall not doubt it long; for you shall see me do it
presently. Look ! the biggest of these Chubs has had some bruise upon
his tail, by a Pike or some other accident; and that looks like a white
spot. That very Chub I mean to put into your hands presently; sit you
but down in the shade, and stay but a little while; and I'll warrant you,
I'll bring him to you.
Venator. I'll sit down; and hope well, because you seem to be so
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: allow a paper which dissents from his views to be brought into his
house. Even at his club he resents seeing it, and excludes it if it
happens to run counter to the opinions of all the members. The result
is that his opinions are not worth considering. A churchman who never
reads The Freethinker very soon has no more real religion than the
atheist who never reads The Church Times. The attitude is the same in
both cases: they want to hear nothing good of their enemies;
consequently they remain enemies and suffer from bad blood all their
lives; whereas men who know their opponents and understand their case,
quite commonly respect and like them, and always learn something from
them.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: for a beastly banquet."
Glennard threw himself into an arm-chair. Why go home in the rain
to dress? It was folly to take a cab to the opera, it was worse
folly to go there at all. His perpetual meetings with Alexa Trent
were as unfair to the girl as they were unnerving to himself.
Since he couldn't marry her, it was time to stand aside and give a
better man the chance--and his thought admitted the ironical
implication that in the terms of expediency the phrase might stand
for Hollingsworth.
II
He dined alone and walked home to his rooms in the rain. As he
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