The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: man, still whistling, but never turning back.
General Philippe de Sucy was thought in the social world to be a very
agreeable man, and above all a very gay one. A few days ago, a lady
complimented him on his good humor, and the charming equability of his
nature.
"Ah! madame," he said, "I pay dear for my liveliness in my lonely
evenings."
"Are you ever alone?" she said.
"No," he replied smiling.
If a judicious observer of human nature could have seen at that moment
the expression on the Comte de Sucy's face, he would perhaps have
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: shall find it cold as marble. No, no, my friend, blood does not run
beneath that ivory skin; the purple tide of life does not swell those
veins, nor stir those fibres which interlace like net-work below the
translucent amber of the brow and breast. This part palpitates with
life, but that other part is not living; life and death jostle each
other in every detail. Here, you have a woman; there, a statue; here
again, a dead body. Your creation is incomplete. You have breathed
only a part of your soul into the well-beloved work. The torch of
Prometheus went out in your hands over and over again; there are
several parts of your painting on which the celestial flame never
shone."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: associates. His features were separately striking almost to
grotesqueness, and the whole face left a deep impression on the
memory. The forehead bulged out into a double prominence, with a
vale between; the nose came boldly forth in an irregular curve,
and its bridge was of more than a finger's breadth; the eyebrows
were deep and shaggy, and the eyes glowed beneath them like fire
in a cave.
While Robin deliberated of whom to inquire respecting his
kinsman's dwelling, he was accosted by the innkeeper, a little
man in a stained white apron, who had come to pay his
professional welcome to the stranger. Being in the second
 The Snow Image |