| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: readiness, wears out the strongest will in vexatious waiting, and
makes misfortune wait on chance.
At our first meeting, Marcas, as it were, dazzled us. On our return
from the schools, a little before the dinner-hour, we were accustomed
to go up to our room and remain there a while, either waiting for the
other, to learn whether there were any change in our plans for the
evening. One day, at four o'clock, Juste met Marcas on the stairs, and
I saw him in the street. It was in the month of November, and Marcas
had no cloak; he wore shoes with heavy soles, corduroy trousers, and a
blue double-breasted coat buttoned to the throat, which gave a
military air to his broad chest, all the more so because he wore a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: stricken as if by a thunderbolt. He stood like a statue, his eyes
fastened on the singer. His flaming glance exerted a sort of magnetic
influence on Zambinella, for he turned his eyes at last in Sarrasine's
direction, and his divine voice faltered. He trembled! An involuntary
murmur escaped the audience, which he held fast as if fastened to his
lips; and that completely disconcerted him; he stopped in the middle
of the aria he was singing and sat down. Cardinal Cicognara, who had
watched from the corner of his eye the direction of his /protege's/
glance, saw the Frenchman; he leaned toward one of his ecclesiastical
aides-de-camp, and apparently asked the sculptor's name. When he had
obtained the reply he desired he scrutinized the artist with great
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: the men had not appeared to observe the rough shoves and cutting
stabs with which Lawless had held his post in the confusion. But
perhaps they had already begun to understand somewhat more clearly,
or perhaps another ear had overheard, the helmsman's speech.
Panic-stricken troops recover slowly, and men who have just
disgraced themselves by cowardice, as if to wipe out the memory of
their fault, will sometimes run straight into the opposite extreme
of insubordination. So it was now; and the same men who had thrown
away their weapons and been hauled, feet foremost, into the Good
Hope, began to cry out upon their leaders, and demand that someone
should be punished.
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