| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: hardly myself conceive it--'
'I am not a child in her teens that my ears should be guarded from
miserable things. I have come of age, I have entered into my
inheritance of the world's bitterness with the rest. I can listen,'
Madeline said. 'Why not?'
He looked to her with grave tenderness. 'You think yourself very
old, and very wise about the world,' he said; 'but you are a woman,
and you will be hurt. And when I think that a little ordinary
forethought on my part would have protected you, I feel like the
criminal I am.'
'Don't make too much of it,' she said, simply. 'I have a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: armchair, with my feet on the fire-dogs. I had lost myself in a
romance /a la/ Radcliffe, constructed on the juridical base given me
by Monsieur Regnault, when the door, opened by a woman's cautious
hand, turned on the hinges. I saw my landlady come in, a buxom, florid
dame, always good-humored, who had missed her calling in life. She was
a Fleming, who ought to have seen the light in a picture by Teniers.
" 'Well, monsieur,' said she, 'Monsieur Regnault has no doubt been
giving you his history of la Grande Breteche?'
" 'Yes, Madame Lepas.'
" 'And what did he tell you?'
"I repeated in a few words the creepy and sinister story of Madame de
 La Grande Breteche |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: Constitution would provide. The capitalist in Russia has
long ago earned the position in which, according to the
Constitution, he has a right to vote, since he has long ago
ceased to be a capitalist. Supposing the Soviet Constitution
were today to be literally applied, it would be found that
practically no class except the priests would be excluded
from the franchise. And when this agitation swells in
volume, it will be an agitation extremely difficult to resist,
supposing Russia to be at peace, so that there will be no
valid excuse with which to meet it. These new constitutional
democrats will be in the position of saying to the
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