| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: loyalty. Certainly it added at the same time hugely to the price
of Vereker's secret, precious as this mystery already appeared. I
may as well confess abjectly that Mrs. Corvick's unexpected
attitude was the final tap on the nail that was to fix fast my
luckless idea, convert it into the obsession of which I'm for ever
conscious.
But this only helped me the more to be artful, to be adroit, to
allow time to elapse before renewing my suit. There were plenty of
speculations for the interval, and one of them was deeply
absorbing. Corvick had kept his information from his young friend
till after the removal of the last barrier to their intimacy - then
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: by the kisses of centuries, jostled each other upon shelves and
brackets. Innumerable sketches, studies in the three crayons, in ink,
and in red chalk covered the walls from floor to ceiling; color-boxes,
bottles of oil and turpentine, easels and stools upset or standing at
right angles, left but a narrow pathway to the circle of light thrown
from the window in the roof, which fell full on the pale face of
Porbus and on the ivory skull of his singular visitor.
The attention of the young man was taken exclusively by a picture
destined to become famous after those days of tumult and revolution,
and which even then was precious in the sight of certain opinionated
individuals to whom we owe the preservation of the divine afflatus
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: eradicate from his heart a fatal thought, namely, that artists laugh
at his work; that his name is a term of contempt in the studios; and
that the feuilletons take no notice of his pictures. But he still
works on; he aims for the Academy, where, undoubtedly, he will enter.
And--oh! vengeance which dilates his heart!--he buys the pictures of
celebrated artists who are pinched for means, and he substitutes these
true works of arts that are not his own for the wretched daubs in the
collection at Ville d'Avray.
There are many mediocrities more aggressive and more mischievous than
that of Pierre Grassou, who is, moreover, anonymously benevolent and
truly obliging.
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