| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: there that morning, half dead of the fumes of charcoal, by a handsome
young woman with whom he has been in love over a year. Her letters are
at this moment under your very nose in your own house. If you want to
teach Nathan a good lesson, let us all three go there; and I'll show
you, papers in hand, how you can save him from the sheriff and Clichy
if you choose to be the good girl that you are."
"Try that on others than Florine, my little man. I am certain that
Nathan has never been in love with any one but me."
"On the contrary, he has been in love with a woman in society for over
a year--"
"A woman in society, he!" cried Florine. "I don't trouble myself about
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: bowed his head. He had no heart to drink. These details were not
calculated to extinguish my curiosity.
As the three ground out the music of the square dance, I gazed at the
old Venetian noble, thinking thoughts that set a young man's mind
afire at the age of twenty. I saw Venice and the Adriatic; I saw her
ruin in the ruin of the face before me. I walked to and fro in that
city, so beloved of her citizens; I went from the Rialto Bridge, along
the Grand Canal, and from the Riva degli Schiavoni to the Lido,
returning to St. Mark's, that cathedral so unlike all others in its
sublimity. I looked up at the windows of the Casa Doro, each with its
different sculptured ornaments; I saw old palaces rich in marbles, saw
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: flow, in gazing at the wonders in the depths of the clear, still river
pools, at the picturesque mosaic made up of pebbles and earth and
sand, of water plants and green moss, and the brown soil washed down
by the stream, a deposit full of soft shades of color, and of hues
that contrast strangely with each other.
"When I first came to the district the poor girl was starving. It hurt
her pride to accept the bread of others; and it was only when driven
to the last extremity of want and suffering that she could bring
herself to ask for charity. The feeling that this was a disgrace would
often give her energy, and for several days she worked in the fields;
but her strength was soon exhausted, and illness obliged her to leave
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