| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: collarette were lacking; she wore that horrible little bag of black
silk on which old women insist on covering their skulls, and it was
now revealed beneath the night-cap which had been pushed aside in
sleep. This rumpled condition gave a menacing expression to the head,
such as painters bestow on witches. The temples, ears, and nape of the
neck, were disclosed in all their withered horror,--the wrinkles being
marked in scarlet lines that contrasted with the would-be white of the
bed-gown which was tied round her neck by a narrow tape. The gaping of
this garment revealed a breast to be likened only to that of an old
peasant woman who cares nothing about her personal ugliness. The
fleshless arm was like a stick on which a bit of stuff was hung. Seen
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: thrust it into the ground. "It is with this knife of magic," said
she, "that you must cut off the black eagle's head." Then the
witch-princess gathered up some sand in her hand, and flung it
into the raven's face. "Resume," cried she, "your own shape!" And
in an instant the prince was himself again. The next thing the
sister of the queen did was to draw a circle upon the ground
around the prince, the old man, and herself. On the circle she
marked strange figures here and there. Then, all three standing
close together, she began her conjurations, uttering strange
words--now under her breath, and now clear and loud.
Presently the sky darkened, and it began to thunder and rumble.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: ocean on one side, and on the other the arm of the sea which runs up
between Croisic and the rocky shore of Guerande, at the base of which
lay the salt marshes, denuded of vegetation, I looked at Pauline and
asked her if she felt the courage to face the burning sun and the
strength to walk through sand.
"I have boots," she said. "Let us go," and she pointed to the tower of
Batz, which arrested the eye by its immense pile placed there like a
pyramid; but a slender, delicately outlined pyramid, a pyramid so
poetically ornate that the imagination figured in it the earliest ruin
of a great Asiatic city.
We advanced a few steps and sat down upon the portion of a large rock
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