| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: interest by dogmatical positions or violent contradiction.
If a dispute arose, he took care to listen with
earnest attention; and, when either speaker grew
vehement and loud, turned towards him with eager
quickness, and uttered a short phrase of admiration,
as if surprised by such cogency of argument as he
had never known before. By this silent concession,
he generally preserved in either controvertist such
a conviction of his own superiority, as inclined him
rather to pity than irritate his adversary, and
prevented those outrages which are sometimes produced
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Under the Andes by Rex Stout: eyes, as I said:
"Bon Dieu!" she cried. "That is an ugly speech,
monsieur!" And she laughed aloud.
"But we must not awaken Harry," she continued with sudden
softness. "What a boy he is--and what a man! Ah, he knows what it
is to love!"
That topic suited me little better, but I followed her. We
talked of Harry, Le Mire with an amount of enthusiasm that
surprised me. Suddenly she stopped abruptly and announced that she
was hungry.
I found Harry's pantry after a few minutes' search and took
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Commission in Lunacy by Honore de Balzac: to live on and pay for my sons' education, I determined to educate
them myself, to make them gentlemen and men of feeling. By investing
my money in the funds I have been enabled to pay off my obligation
sooner than I had dared to hope, for I took advantage of the
opportunities afforded by the improvement in prices. If I had kept
four thousand francs a year for my boys and myself, I could only have
paid off twenty thousand crowns a year, and it would have taken almost
eighteen years to achieve my freedom. As it is, I have lately repaid
the whole of the eleven hundred thousand francs that were due. Thus I
enjoy the happiness of having made this restitution without doing my
children the smallest wrong.
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