| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: with my two hands, wringing his neck as if he had been a chicken. I
wanted Bianca to fly with me; but she would not. That is the way with
women! So I went alone. I was condemned to death, and my property was
confiscated and made over to my next-of-kin; but I had carried off my
diamonds, five of Titian's pictures taken down from their frames and
rolled up, and all my gold.
"I went to Milan, no one molested me, my affair in nowise interested
the State.--One small observation before I go further," he continued,
after a pause, "whether it is true or no that the mother's fancies at
the time of conception or in the months before birth can influence her
child, this much is certain, my mother during her pregnancy had a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: surveillance, always restrained, always prepared to kiss the
hand of whatever relative might be near and to take themselves of
to anywhere so it were somewhere else.
"I am so glad you are going to talk to me about an American
child," said Harmony, bringing in the tea.
But Mrs. Boyer was not so sure she was going to talk about the
American child. She was not sure of anything, except that the
household looked most irregular, and that Peter Byrne was trying
to cover a difficult situation with much conversation. He was
almost glib, was Peter. The tea was good; that was one thing.
She sat back with her muff on her knee, having refused the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: complain of Betty, and that the young man should now turn up as an
appendage of Flora's was one of those oft-cited proofs that the
world is small and that there are not enough people to go round.
His father had been something or other in the Treasury; his
grandfather on the mother's side had been something or other in the
Church. He had come into the paternal estate, two or three
thousand a year in Hampshire; but he had let the place
advantageously and was generous to four plain sisters who lived at
Bournemouth and adored him. The family was hideous all round, but
the very salt of the earth. He was supposed to be unspeakably
clever; he was fond of London, fond of books, of intellectual
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