| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: monsieur knows it was the little property I received from my uncle in
England that I placed in his hands."
"Yes, yes," said la Peyrade, "but you must understand that with all
these rumors set about by your master's relatives the prize of virtue
is desperately endangered."
"If it is God's will that I am not to have it--"
"You ought also to understand how important it is for your interests
to keep secret the other service which I did for you. At the first
appearance of any indiscretion on your part that money, as I told you,
will be peremptorily returned to you."
"Oh! monsieur may be easy about that."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: she replied quite cheerfully. Was her cheerfulness explained
by the impression that I would settle for her?
I was glad the next morning that we had neglected practical questions,
for this gave me a pretext for seeing her again immediately.
There was a very practical question to be touched upon.
I owed it to her to let her know formally that of course I did not expect
her to keep me on as a lodger, and also to show some interest in her
own tenure, what she might have on her hands in the way of a lease.
But I was not destined, as it happened, to converse with her for more
than an instant on either of these points. I sent her no message;
I simply went down to the sala and walked to and fro there.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: if the scream is sometimes a theory. Shelley, chafing at the
Church of England, discovered the cure of all evils in
universal atheism. Generous lads irritated at the injustices
of society, see nothing for it but the abolishment of
everything and Kingdom Come of anarchy. Shelley was a young
fool; so are these cocksparrow revolutionaries. But it is
better to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a
scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible
to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as
it comes in a forlorn stupidity. Some people swallow the
universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like
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