| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: proceedings for nullity of contract, and gained the day. Encouraged by
this success, he used legal quibbles to such purpose that he compelled
some institution or other to disgorge the Forest of Liceney. Then he
won certain lawsuits against the Canal d'Orleans, and recovered a
tolerably large amount of property, with which the Emperor had endowed
various public institutions. So it fell out that, thanks to the young
attorney's skilful management, Mme. de Grandlieu's income reached the
sum of some sixty thousand francs, to say nothing of the vast sums
returned to her by the law of indemnity. And Derville, a man of high
character, well informed, modest, and pleasant in company, became the
house-friend of the family.
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: that she liked Jacques very much, and his violin pleased her to the
heart. But the new building by the river? I am sure she never even
thought of it once, in the way that he did.
Well, in the end of June, just after the furniture had come for the
house with the curved roof, Serena was married to Hose Ransom. He
was a young widower without children, and altogether the best
fellow, as well as the most prosperous, in the settlement. His
house stood up on the hill, across the road from the lot which
Jacques had bought. It was painted white, and it had a narrow front
porch, with a scroll-saw fringe around the edge of it; and there was
a little garden fenced in with white palings, in which Sweet
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: In a woman's handwriting, containing, half guess'd,
An odor of violets faint as the Spring,
And coquettishly seal'd with a small signet-ring.
But in Autumn, the season of sombre reflection,
When a damp day, at breakfast, begins with dejection;
Far from London and Paris, and ill at one's ease,
Away in the heart of the blue Pyrenees,
Where a call from the doctor, a stroll to the bath,
A ride through the hills on a hack like a lath,
A cigar, a French novel, a tedious flirtation,
Are all a man finds for his day's occupation,
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