| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: remark she had frequently enough had occasion to make, though she
had given it at different times different developments. What we
are especially concerned with is the turn it happened to take from
her one afternoon when he had come to see her in honour of her
birthday. This anniversary had fallen on a Sunday, at a season of
thick fog and general outward gloom; but he had brought her his
customary offering, having known her now long enough to have
established a hundred small traditions. It was one of his proofs
to himself, the present he made her on her birthday, that he hadn't
sunk into real selfishness. It was mostly nothing more than a
small trinket, but it was always fine of its kind, and he was
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: applied to views vitiated by a vagueness really infantine. A
little learning's a dangerous thing, and a good citizen who happens
to have been an ass is worse for a community than bad sewerage.
He's worst of all when he's dead, because then he can't be stopped.
However, such as they were, the poor man's aspirations are now in
his wife's bosom, or fermenting rather in her foolish brain: it
lies with her to carry them out. But of course she must first
catch her hare."
"Her earnest loyal seeker?"
"The flower that blushes unseen for want of such a pecuniary
independence as may aid the light that's in it to shine upon the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: Twice or thrice at the most, tiring of each;
And closing one by one your doors, drew in
Slowly, through darkening labyrinths of feeling,
Towards the central chamber . . . Which now you've reached.
What, then's, the secret of this ultimate chamber--
Or innermost, rather? If I see it clearly
It is the last, and cunningest, resort
Of one who has found this world of dust and flesh,--
This world of lamentations, death, injustice,
Sickness, humiliation, slow defeat,
Bareness, and ugliness, and iteration,--
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