The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: they might mean. If he were doomed to be bereft of
her, so it must be. In the situation which their marriage
would create he could see no locus standi for himself at
all. Farfrae would never recognize him more than
superciliously; his poverty ensured that, no less than his
past conduct. And so Elizabeth would grow to be a stranger
to him, and the end of his life would be friendless
solitude.
With such a possibility impending he could not help
watchfulness. Indeed, within certain lines, he had the
right to keep an eye upon her as his charge. The meetings
 The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: Eugene.
"What are you talking about?" asked Monsieur de Listomere, who, for
the last minute, had been listening to the conversation, the meaning
of which he could not penetrate.
"Oh! nothing that would interest you," replied his wife.
Monsieur de Listomere tranquilly returned to the reading of his paper,
and presently said:--
"Ah! Madame de Mortsauf is dead; your poor brother has, no doubt, gone
to Clochegourde."
"Are you aware, monsieur," resumed the marquise, turning to Eugene,
"that what you have just said is a great impertinence?"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: assured was her mind on the subject of his expectations,
that, could she have felt equally confident of the wishes
of his son, Catherine would have quitted Woodston with
little anxiety as to the How or the When she might return to it.
CHAPTER 27
The next morning brought the following very unexpected
letter from Isabella:
Bath, April
My dearest Catherine, I received your two kind
letters with the greatest delight, and have a thousand
 Northanger Abbey |