The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: "Oh then I'm to be present?"
"Why you are present--since you know."
"I see." She turned it over. "But I mean at the catastrophe."
At this, for a minute, their lightness gave way to their gravity;
it was as if the long look they exchanged held them together. "It
will only depend on yourself--if you'll watch with me."
"Are you afraid?" she asked.
"Don't leave me now," he went on.
"Are you afraid?" she repeated.
"Do you think me simply out of my mind?" he pursued instead of
answering. "Do I merely strike you as a harmless lunatic?"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: own strength that turns in upon itself, and dies, and rises new born like a
Phoenix out of the ashes of that horrible death. Love me just this once,
tell me a lie, SAY that you do--you are always lying."
Instead, she pushed him away--frightened.
"Get up," she said; "suppose the servant came in with the tea?"
"Oh, ye gods!" He stumbled to his feet and stood staring down at her.
"You're rotten to the core and so am I. But you're heathenishly
beautiful."
The woman went over to the piano--stood there--striking one note--her brows
drawn together. Then she shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
"I'll make a confession. Every word you have said is true. I can't help
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: would have simplified matters by removing his chaussures,
it had seemed to Clifford that the shortest cut to comfortable
relations with people--relations which should make him cease to
think that when they spoke to him they meant something improving--
was to renounce all ambition toward a nefarious development.
And, in fact, Clifford's ambition took the most commendable form.
He thought of himself in the future as the well-known and much-liked
Mr. Wentworth, of Boston, who should, in the natural course
of prosperity, have married his pretty cousin, Lizzie Acton;
should live in a wide-fronted house, in view of the Common;
and should drive, behind a light wagon, over the damp
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