but his future life was characterized by kindness and generosity."
Future looks forward from the present, and not from some point of time
in the past.

Gent's pants

"Gent's pants scoured and pressed." Business signs and business
advertisements are responsible for many vulgarisms. Never say gent's
nor pants. Even pantaloons is not so good a word as trousers.
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80

Sit, Set

Few words afford a more fertile field for grammatical blundering than
the verbs sit and set. The important fact to remember in the use of
the words is that sit, in modern usage, is an intransitive verb, and
does not take an object, while set, which means to place in position,
is transitive, and requires an object to complete its meaning. You
cannot sit a thing, but you do set or place a thing.

The verb sit undergoes a slight change with the change of tense or
time. "I sit at the window today." "I sat at the window yesterday." "I
have sat at the window daily for many years." "Sitting at the window,
I saw the storm arise." "Having sat at his table, I can testify to his
hospitality."

The transitive verb set undergoes no tense changes. "See me set this
vase on the table." "He set his seal to the paper yesterday." "Jones