The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: sense of demoniac possession, and there flashed through her
the longing to return to her old state of fearless
ignorance. If at that moment she could have kept Darrow
from following her to Givre she would have done so...
But he came; and with the sight of him the turmoil fell and
she felt herself reassured, rehabilitated. He arrived
toward dusk, and she motored to Francheuil to meet him. She
wanted to see him as soon as possible, for she had divined,
through the new insight that was in her, that only his
presence could restore her to a normal view of things. In
the motor, as they left the town and turned into the high-
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: impressions she had received. They were a part of the closest
intimacy of her intercourse with her aunt, they were absolutely
clear to her; and on questions of delicacy, the interpretation of a
fidelity, of a promise, one had always in the last resort to make
up one's mind for one's self. It was the idea of the application
to the particular case, such a splendid one at last, that troubled
her, and she admitted that it stirred very deep things. She didn't
pretend that such a responsibility was a simple matter; if it HAD
been she wouldn't have attempted to saddle me with any portion of
it. The Mulvilles were sympathy itself, but were they absolutely
candid? Could they indeed be, in their position--would it even
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: understand that under the dullness there are things so
fine and sensitive and delicate that even those I most
cared for in my other life look cheap in comparison. I
don't know how to explain myself"--she drew together
her troubled brows-- "but it seems as if I'd
never before understood with how much that is hard
and shabby and base the most exquisite pleasures may
be paid."
"Exquisite pleasures--it's something to have had
them!" he felt like retorting; but the appeal in her eyes
kept him silent.
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