| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: appointed hour after dinner a third joined them, making five. John
found these cards when he came home to go to bed, and picked them up and
stuck them ornamentally in Billy's looking-glass, as a greeting when
Billy should return, The eight o'clock visit was the last that Oscar
paid to the locked door, He remained through the evening in his own
room, studious, contented, unventilated, indulging in his thick notes,
and also in the thought of Billy's and Bertie's eleventh-hour
scholarship, "Even with another day," he told himself, "those young men
could not have got fifty per cent," In those times this was the passing
mark. To-day I believe you get an A, or a B, or some other letter
denoting your rank. In due time Oscar turned out his gas and got into
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: of the day at which young men, these or others, would not be so
occupied. The people who approached took leave of their manners;
every one seemed to linger and gape. When she brought her face
close to Mrs. Meldrum's--and she appeared to be always bringing it
close to somebody's--it was a marvel that objects so dissimilar
should express the same general identity, the unmistakable
character of the English gentlewoman. Mrs. Meldrum sustained the
comparison with her usual courage, but I wondered why she didn't
introduce me: I should have had no objection to the bringing of
such a face close to mine. However, by the time the young lady
moved on with her escort she herself bequeathed me a sense that
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: natural that she should tell him she needed two hundred
pounds.
He had come in with the Fair Maid in ballast to look
for a freight in the Sofala's port of registry, and her
letter met him there. Its tenor was that it was no use
mincing matters. Her only resource was in opening a
boarding-house, for which the prospects, she judged,
were good. Good enough, at any rate, to make her tell
him frankly that with two hundred pounds she could
make a start. He had torn the envelope open, hastily,
on deck, where it was handed to him by the ship-
End of the Tether |
