| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: occasion only.'
His florid cheek lost a shade of its colour, and he bit his lips
as he glanced at the Lieutenant, trouble in his eyes. I had seen
these signs before, and knew them, and I might have cried
'Chicken-heart!' in my turn; but I had not made a way of escape
for him--before I declared myself--for nothing, and I held to my
purpose.
'I think you will allow now,' I said grimly, 'that it will not
harm me even if I put up with a blow!'
'M. de Berault's courage is known,' he muttered.
'And with reason,' I said. 'That being so suppose that we say
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: mother had given her, Eugenie kissed the dear hand, saying,--
"How good you are, my kind mamma!"
The words sent a glow of light into the motherly face, worn and
blighted as it was by many sorrows.
"You like him?" asked Eugenie.
Madame Grandet only smiled in reply. Then, after a moment's silence,
she said in a low voice: "Do you love him already? That is wrong."
"Wrong?" said Eugenie. "Why is it wrong? You are pleased with him,
Nanon is pleased with him; why should he not please me? Come, mamma,
let us set the table for his breakfast."
She threw down her work, and her mother did the same, saying, "Foolish
 Eugenie Grandet |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: then, as the years passed, none ate.
"Even in those days, which men reck not of now, when men fell easily open
their hands and knees, they were of us on the earth. And, if you would
learn a secret, even before man trod here, in the days when the dicynodont
bent yearningly over her young, and the river-horse which you find now
nowhere on earth's surface, save buried in stone, called with love to his
mate; and the birds whose footprints are on the rocks flew in the sunshine
calling joyfully to one another--even in those days when man was not, the
fore-dawn of this kingdom had broken on the earth. And still as the sun
rises and sets and the planets journey round, we grow and grow."
The stranger rose from the fire, and stood upright: around him, and behind
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