| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: to shorten by just so much the day's labor. At this hour the over-
heated rooms cool off; the peculiar odor that hangs about the bureaus
evaporates; silence is restored. By four o'clock none but a few clerks
who do their duty conscientiously remain. A minister may know who are
the real workers under him if he will take the trouble to walk through
the divisions after four o'clock,--a species of prying, however, that
no one of his dignity would condescend to.
The various heads of divisions and bureaus usually encountered each
other in the courtyards at this hour and exchanged opinions on the
events of the day. On this occasion they departed by twos and threes,
most of them agreeing in favor of Rabourdin; while the old stagers,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How
all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet
in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle
fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question--WHY I
thus suffered; now, at the distance of--I will not say how many
years, I see it clearly.
I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had
nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen
vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love
them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that
could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing,
Jane Eyre |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: "Mars Tom!"
"It's so; I ain't joking."
"Well, sah, I hain't ever heard de likes o' dat befo'."
Jim couldn't believe it, and I couldn't; so we had to
drop down to the sand and git a supply and see. Tom
was right. They went for me and Jim by the thou-
sand, but not a one of them lit on Tom. There warn't
no explaining it, but there it was and there warn't no
getting around it. He said it had always been just so,
and he'd just as soon be where there was a million of
them as not; they'd never touch him nor bother
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