| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: of the personal inclinations of the married, is sound. Think for a
minute, and you will see that it must be so; unless, of course, you
believe in "affinities." In which case you had better not read this
tale. How can a man who has never married; who cannot be trusted to
pick up at sight a moderately sound horse; whose head is hot and
upset with visions of domestic felicity, go about the choosing of a
wife? He cannot see straight or think straight if he tries; and the
same disadvantages exist in the case of a girl's fancies. But when
mature, married and discreet people arrange a match between a boy
and a girl, they do it sensibly, with a view to the future, and the
young couple live happily ever afterwards. As everybody knows.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: "It is nothing--a scratch. He has papers: I am sure of it. Take
them; and for God's sake let him go!"
"Villain! give me your papers!" cried Amyas, setting his foot once
more on the writhing Eustace, whose jaw was broken across.
"You struck me foully from behind," moaned he, his vanity and envy
even then coming out, in that faint and foolish attempt to prove
Amyas not so very much better a man.
"Hound, do you think that I dare not strike you in front? Give me
your papers, letters, whatever Popish devilry you carry; or as I
live, I will cut off your head, and take them myself, even if it
cost me the shame of stripping your corpse. Give them up!
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: there was a fourth, beyond them, without issue save through the
preceding. To have moved, to have heard his step again, was
appreciably a help; though even in recognising this he lingered
once more a little by the chimney-piece on which his light had
rested. When he next moved, just hesitating where to turn, he
found himself considering a circumstance that, after his first and
comparatively vague apprehension of it, produced in him the start
that often attends some pang of recollection, the violent shock of
having ceased happily to forget. He had come into sight of the
door in which the brief chain of communication ended and which he
now surveyed from the nearer threshold, the one not directly facing
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