| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: each a wedge, which then they drove in between the joints, standing
one to right, the other to left of their victim; the executioner's
wedge was driven in at the knees, his assistant's at the ankles.
The eyes of all present fastened on those of Christophe, and he, no
doubt excited by the presence of those great personages, shot forth
such burning glances that they appeared to have all the brilliancy of
flame. As the third and fourth wedges were driven in, a dreadful groan
escaped him. When he saw the executioner take up the wedges for the
"extraordinary question" he said no word and made no sound, but his
eyes took on so terrible a fixity, and he cast upon the two great
princes who were watching him a glance so penetrating, that the duke
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: that.''
It was the people--and all the people--of that new world that seemed
so strange to Bessie Bell.
There were children, and children in all the summer cabins on that
high mountain.
And those children did not walk in rows.
And those children did not do things by one hours.
And those children did not wash their hands in little white basins
sitting in rows on long back gallery benches.
It was strange to Bessie Bell that those children did not sit in
rows to eat tiny cakes with caraway seeds in them while Sister
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: apt choice and contrast of the words employed. It is,
indeed, a strange art to take these blocks, rudely conceived
for the purpose of the market or the bar, and by tact of
application touch them to the finest meanings and
distinctions, restore to them their primal energy, wittily
shift them to another issue, or make of them a drum to rouse
the passions. But though this form of merit is without doubt
the most sensible and seizing, it is far from being equally
present in all writers. The effect of words in Shakespeare,
their singular justice, significance, and poetic charm, is
different, indeed, from the effect of words in Addison or
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