| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: afraid of me--which struck me indeed as perhaps the best thing to make him.
Yet in the very pang of the effort I felt it vain to try sternness,
and I heard myself the next instant so gentle as to be almost grotesque.
"You want so to go out again?"
"Awfully!" He smiled at me heroically, and the touching little
bravery of it was enhanced by his actually flushing with pain.
He had picked up his hat, which he had brought in, and stood
twirling it in a way that gave me, even as I was just nearly
reaching port, a perverse horror of what I was doing.
To do it in ANY way was an act of violence, for what did
it consist of but the obtrusion of the idea of grossness
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: covetous; a look like a flash of lightning from a sodden cloud; for
the old "bear," faithful to his traditions, never went to bed without
a nightcap, consisting of a couple of bottles of excellent old wine,
which he "tippled down" of an evening, to use his own expression.
"Nothing simpler," said David; "I have none of the paper about me, for
I came here to be out of Doublon's way; and having come so far, I
thought I might as well come to you at Marsac as borrow of a money-
lender. I have nothing on me but my clothes. Shut me up somewhere on
the premises, so that nobody can come in and see me at work, and----"
"What? you will not let me see you at your work then?" asked the old
man, with an ugly look at his son.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: the bed, and seemed almost already a lifeless corpse, save for
the wandering of the fierce dark eyes, which rolled in their
sockets in a manner terrible to look upon, and seemed to watch
with surprise and indignation the motions of the strangers, as
persons whose presence was alike unexpected and unwelcome. They
were frightened at her looks; but, assured in each other's
company, they kindled a fire, lighted a candle, prepared food,
and made other arrangements for the discharge of the duty
assigned them.
The assistants agreed they should watch the bedside of the sick
person by turns; but, about midnight, overcome by fatigue, (for
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