| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: age dims that spark of unquestioning fealty that gleams in a young
man's eyes, a woman feels a certain mistrust of him, and begins to
observe him critically. The Cointets, Cerizet, and Petit-Claud--all
the men whom Eve felt instinctively to be her enemies--had turned
hard, indifferent eyes on her; with the deputy-magistrate, therefore,
she felt at ease, although, in spite of his kindly courtesy, he swept
all her hopes away by his first words.
"It is not certain, madame, that the Court-Royal will reverse the
judgment of the court restricting your lien on your husband's
property, for payment of moneys due to you by the terms of your
marriage-contract, to household goods and chattels. Your privilege
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: scene of our old pleasure parties so unexpectedly, after so long
an interval, and both already so much altered.
"That is the sentiment," he replied. "All, all are gone, the old
familiar faces. I have been here a week, and the only living
creature who seemed to recollect me was the Pharaon. Bar the
Sirons, of course, and the perennial Bodmer."
"Is there no survivor?" I inquired.
"Of our geological epoch? not one," he replied. "This is the city
of Petra in Edom."
"And what sort of Bedouins encamp among the ruins?" I asked.
"Youth, Dodd, youth; blooming, conscious youth," he returned.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Gentle Grafter by O. Henry: smoke ere long.'
"All the next morning Andy was out. I didn't see him until about noon.
He came to the hotel and called me into his room across the hall. He
pulled a roundish bundle about as big as a goose egg out of his pocket
and unwrapped it. It was an ivory carving just as he had described the
millionaire's to me.
"'I went in an old second hand store and pawnshop a while ago,' says
Andy, 'and I see this half hidden under a lot of old daggers and
truck. The pawnbroker said he'd had it several years and thinks it was
soaked by some Arabs or Turks or some foreign dubs that used to live
down by the river.
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