| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: me as a wife obeys her husband, as a child obeys his mother, and I
will guarantee that you shall be Marquis de Rubempre in less than six
months; you shall marry into one of the proudest houses in the
Faubourg Saint-Germain, and some day you shall sit on a bench with
peers of France. What would you have been at this moment if I had not
amused you by my conversation?--An undiscovered corpse in a deep bed
of mud. Well and good, now for an effort of imagination----"
Lucien looked curiously at his protector.
"Here, in this caleche beside the Abbe Carlos Herrera, canon of
Toledo, secret envoy from His Majesty Ferdinand VII. to his Majesty
the King of France, bearer of a despatch thus worded it may be--'When
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: prebend of Westminster Abbey, was actually in the cloisters of the
Abbey. They were not at home, but I took my footman and wandered at
leisure through the cloisters, treading at every step on the tomb of
some old abbot with dates of 1160 and thereabouts.
Nothing could be more delightful than London is now, if I had only a
little more physical vigor to enjoy it. We see everybody more
frequently, and know them better than in the full season, and we
have some of the best specimens of English society, too, here just
now, as the Whig ministry brings a good deal of the ability of the
aristocracy to its aid. The subjects of conversation among women
are more general than with us, and [they] are much more cultivated
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: for many years was suffering from rheumatism, and was cared for
by her daughter in the little cottage across the road from the
Lancaster house. Her husband and grandson were the man and boy
at work in the grounds. The three sisters took care of
themselves and their house with the elegant ease and lack of
fluster of gentlewomen born and bred. Miss Amelia, bringing in
the tea-tray, was an unclassed being, neither maid nor mistress,
but outranking either. She had tied on a white apron. She bore
the silver tray with an ease which bespoke either nerve or muscle
in her lace-draped arms.
She poured the tea, holding the silver pot high and letting the
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