| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: real life into their existence, made insipid by the lack of
opposition. Louis XI., however, played the incognito openly. On these
occasions he was always the good fellow, endeavoring to please the
people of the middle classes, whom he made his allies against
feudality. For some time past he had found no opportunity to "make
himself populace" and espouse the domestic interests of some man
"engarrie" (an old word still used in Tours, meaning engaged) in
litigious affairs, so that he shouldered the anxieties of Maitre
Cornelius eagerly, and also the secret sorrows of the Comtesse de
Saint-Vallier. Several times during dinner he said to his daughter:--
"Who, think you, could have robbed my silversmith? The robberies now
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: ambition was to make her salon a centre towards which a given number
of persons should nightly make their way with pleasure. One morning as
she left Saint-Gatien, after Birotteau and his friend Mademoiselle
Salomon had spent a few evenings with her and with the faithful and
patient Troubert, she said to certain of her good friends whom she met
at the church door, and whose slave she had hitherto considered
herself, that those who wished to see her could certainly come once a
week to her house, where she had friends enough to make a card-table;
she could not leave the Abbe Birotteau; Mademoiselle Salomon had not
missed a single evening that week; she was devoted to friends; and--et
cetera, et cetera. Her speech was all the more humbly haughty and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: "Ma and I never look out of the windows from curiosity," said
Ethel Glynn, with spirit. Ethel Glynn had a great deal of
spirit, which was evinced in her personal appearance as well as
her tongue. She had an eye to the fashions; her sleeves were
never out of date, nor was the arrangement of her hair.
"For instance," said Ethel, "we never look at the house opposite
because we are at all prying, but we do know that that old maid
has been doing a mighty queer thing lately."
"First thing you know you will be an old maid yourself, and then
your stones will break your own glass house," said Abby Simson.
"Oh, I don't care," retorted Ethel. "Nowadays an old maid isn't
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