| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: deal of property in the neighborhood of Carentan, she took refuge in
that town, hoping that the influence of the Terror would be little
felt there. This expectation, based on a knowledge of the region, was
well-founded. The Revolution committed but few ravages in Lower
Normandy. Though Madame de Dey had known none but the nobles of her
own caste when she visited her property in former years, she now felt
it advisable to open her house to the principle bourgeois of the town,
and to the new governmental authorities; trying to make them pleased
at obtaining her society, without arousing either hatred or jealousy.
Gracious and kind, gifted by nature with that inexpressible charm
which can please without having recourse to subserviency or to making
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from One Basket by Edna Ferber: hand. She was breathing rapidly, as if she had been running.
Her eyes were straining up the street.
"Why, Emily, how in the world----!"
"I ran away. Fred didn't want me to come. He said it would
excite me too much."
"Fred?"
"My husband. He made me promise to say good-by to Jo at home."
"Jo?"
"Jo's my boy. And he's going to war. So I ran away. I had to
see him. I had to see him go."
She was dry-eyed. Her gaze was straining up the street.
One Basket |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: galley-ships. In all this populous and intricate world of
anguish, though he found none to worship, he found many to help.
He fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and healed the sick,
and comforted the captive; and his years passed more swiftly than
the weaver's shuttle that flashes back and forth through the loom
while the web grows and the pattern is completed.
It seemed almost as if he had forgotten his quest. But
once I saw him for a moment as he stood alone at sunrise,
waiting at the gate of a Roman prison. He had taken from a
secret resting-place in his bosom the pearl, the last of his
jewels. As he looked at it, a mellower lustre, a soft and
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