| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: her eyes at him. "If you don't go away this moment I'll bite you again,"
she said, and the absurd words started her laughing. Even when the door
was closed, hearing him descending the stairs, she laughed, and danced
about the room.
What a morning! Oh, chalk it up. That was her first fight, and she'd won
--she'd conquered that beast--all by herself. Her hands were still
trembling. She pulled up the sleeve of her gown--great red marks on her
arms. "My ribs will be blue. I'll be blue all over," she reflected. "If
only that beloved Casimir could have seen us." And the feeling of rage and
disgust against Casimir had totally disappeared. How could the poor
darling help not having any money? It was her fault as much as his, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: silence is the best. Though this penitence comes too late,
it may be well, at least, to give it expression.
The spirit of Villon is still living in the literature of
France. Fat Peg is oddly of a piece with the work of Zola,
the Goncourts, and the infinitely greater Flaubert; and,
while similar in ugliness, still surpasses them in native
power. The old author, breaking with an ECLAT DE VOIX, out
of his tongue-tied century, has not yet been touched on his
own ground, and still gives us the most vivid and shocking
impression of reality. Even if that were not worth doing at
all, it would be worth doing as well as he has done it; for
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: favorite attitude, to look at the Minister. Need it be said that the
servants had left, that the doors were shut, and the curtains drawn
over them? The silence was so complete that the murmurs of the
coachmen's voices could be heard from the courtyard, and the pawing
and champing made by horses when asking to be taken back to their
stable.
"The statesman, my friends, exists by one single quality," said the
Minister, playing with his gold and mother-of-pearl dessert knife. "To
wit: the power of always being master of himself; of profiting more or
less, under all circumstances, by every event, however fortuitous; in
short, of having within himself a cold and disinterested other self,
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