| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: example, an ox or a sheep--would you not think that which you could sell
and give and sacrifice to any god whom you pleased, to be your own, and
that which you could not give or sell or sacrifice you would think not to
be in your own power?
Yes, I said (for I was certain that something good would come out of the
questions, which I was impatient to hear); yes, such things, and such
things only are mine.
Yes, he said, and you would mean by animals living beings?
Yes, I said.
You agree then, that those animals only are yours with which you have the
power to do all these things which I was just naming?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polly of the Circus by Margaret Mayo: "Do you love the parson, Poll?"
She started.
"Is that it?"
Her lids fluttered and closed, she caught her breath quickly, her
lips apart, then looked far into the distance.
"Yes, Jim, I'm afraid--that's it." The little figure drooped,
and she stood before him with lowered eyes, unarmed. Jim looked
at her helplessly, then shook his big, stupid head.
"Ain't that hell?"
It seemed such a short time to Jim since he had picked her up, a
cooing babe, at her dead mother's side. He watched the tender,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: to prevent all your other creditors from doing the same thing. And now
what does the court do when all the creditors make application for
orders to pay? /The court divides the whole sum attached,
proportionately among them all./ That division, made under the eye of
a magistrate, is what we call a /contribution/. If you owe ten
thousand francs, and your creditors issue writs of attachment on a
debt due to you of a thousand francs, each one of them gets so much
per cent, 'so much in the pound,' in legal phrase; so much (that
means) in proportion to the amounts severally claimed by the
creditors. But--the creditors cannot touch the money without a special
order from the clerk of the court. Do you guess what all this work
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