| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: circumstances of Otto Lindenschmidt's death, to the civil
authorities of Breslau, requesting that they might be placed in the
hands of his sister Elise.
This, I supposed, was the end of the history, so far as my
connection with it was concerned. But one cannot track a secret
with impunity; the fatality connected with the act and the actor
clings even to the knowledge of the act. I had opened my door a
little, in order to look out upon the life of another, but in doing
so a ghost had entered in, and was not to be dislodged until
I had done its service.
In the summer of 1867 I was in Germany, and during a brief journey
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: Gordon's abrupt departure from Baden. Gordon went to Berlin, and shortly
afterward to America, so that they were on opposite sides of the globe.
Before he returned to his own country, Bernard made by letter two or
three offers to join him in Europe, anywhere that was agreeable to him.
Gordon answered that his movements were very uncertain, and that he should
be sorry to trouble Bernard to follow him about. He had put him to this
inconvenience in making him travel from Venice to Baden, and one such
favor at a time was enough to ask, even of the most obliging of men.
Bernard was, of course, afraid that what he had told Gordon about Angela
Vivian was really the cause of a state of things which, as between
two such good friends, wore a perceptible resemblance to alienation.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: that, but I am glad that it has been said."
Mrs. Gregory turned to her companion. "Shall we call to-morrow?"
"Don't you feel it must be done?" returned Mrs. Weguelin, and then she
addressed me. "Do you know a Mr. Beverly Rodgers?"
I gave him a golden recommendation and took my leave of the ladies.
So they were going to do the handsome thing; they would ring the
Cornerlys' bell; they would cross the interloping threshold, they would
recognize the interloping girl; and this meant that they had given it up.
It meant that Miss Eliza had given it up, too, had at last abandoned her
position that the marriage would never take place. And her own act had
probably drawn this down upon her. When the trustee of that estate had
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