| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Breaking Point by Mary Roberts Rinehart: to get a car, drive down to the main line with Dick, and then send
the car back.
He went out at once and made an arrangement for a car, and on
returning notified the clerk that he was going to leave, and asked
to have his bill made out. After some hesitation he said: "I'll
pay three-twenty too, while I'm at it. Friend of mine there, going
with me. Yes, up to to-night."
As he turned away he saw the short, heavy figure of Wilkins coming
in. He stood back and watched. The sheriff went to the desk,
pulled the register toward him and ran over several pages of it.
Then he shoved it away, turned and saw him.
The Breaking Point |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: the actual adventures of my youth, you regarded them as mere
romance and would not see their bearing. When I told you that
history of a lawyer at the galleys branded for forgery, who
committed the crime to give his wife, adored like yours, an income
of thirty thousand francs, and whom his wife denounced that she
might be rid of him and free to love another man, you exclaimed,
and other fools who were supping with us exclaimed against me.
Well, my dear Paul, you were that lawyer, less the galleys.
Your friends here are not sparing you. The sister of the two
Vandenesses, the Marquise de Listomere and all her set, in which,
by the bye, that little Rastignac has enrolled himself,--the scamp
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: consent to put on, and persuaded his customer that all were in the
very latest fashion. Lucien came out the owner of a green coat, a pair
of white trousers, and a "fancy waistcoat," for which outfit he gave
two hundred francs. Ere long he found a very elegant pair of ready-
made shoes that fitted his foot; and, finally, when he had made all
necessary purchases, he ordered the tradespeople to send them to his
address, and inquired for a hairdresser. At seven o'clock that evening
he called a cab and drove away to the Opera, curled like a Saint John
of a Procession Day, elegantly waistcoated and gloved, but feeling a
little awkward in this kind of sheath in which he found himself for
the first time.
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