| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: sounded through the house with shivering rapidity. It was a regular
peal, as Zoe said, a peal loud enough to upset the neighborhood,
seeing that a whole mob of men were jabbing at the ivory button, one
after the other. That old joker Bordenave had really been far too
lavish with her address. Why, the whole of yesterday's house was
coming!
"By the by, Francis, have you five louis?" said Nana.
He drew back, looked carefully at her headdress and then quietly
remarked:
"Five louis, that's according!"
"Ah, you know if you want securities. . ." she continued.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: seek out Nature's most striking effects, doubtless because they
despair of rendering the great and glorious charm of her daily moods;
yet the human soul is often stirred as deeply by her calm as by her
emotion, and by silence as by storm.
For a moment no one spoke on board the boat. Every one watched that
sea and sky, either with some presentiment of danger, or because they
felt the influence of the religious melancholy that takes possession
of nearly all of us at the close of the day, the hour of prayer, when
all nature is hushed save for the voices of the bells. The sea gleamed
pale and wan, but its hues changed, and the surface took all the
colors of steel. The sky was almost overspread with livid gray, but
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: two of broth, asked to have the two tame mice on the bed. Peter,
opening the cage, found one dead, very stiff and stark. The
catastrophe he kept from the boy.
"One is sick, Jimmy boy," he said, and placed the mate, forlorn
and shivering, on the pillow. After a minute:--
"If the sick one dies will it go to heaven?"
"Yes, honey, I think so."
The boy was silent for a time. Thinking was easier than speech.
His mind too worked slowly. It was after a pause, while he lay
there with closed eyes, that Peter saw two tears slip from under
his long lashes. Peter bent over and wiped them away, a great
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