| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: if one had been able to choose; she assured him she could perfectly
imagine some of the echoes with which his silences were peopled.
He knew she couldn't: one's relation to what one had loved and
hated had been a relation too distinct from the relations of
others. But this didn't affect the fact that they were growing old
together in their piety. She was a feature of that piety, but even
at the ripe stage of acquaintance in which they occasionally
arranged to meet at a concert or to go together to an exhibition
she was not a feature of anything else. The most that happened was
that his worship became paramount. Friend by friend dropped away
till at last there were more emblems on his altar than houses left
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: "I daresay he isn't very strong," said Mrs. Chailey, looking at
Mrs. Ambrose compassionately, as she helped to shift and carry.
"It's books," sighed Helen, lifting an armful of sad volumes
from the floor to the shelf. "Greek from morning to night.
If ever Miss Rachel marries, Chailey, pray that she may marry a man
who doesn't know his ABC."
The preliminary discomforts and harshnesses, which generally make
the first days of a sea voyage so cheerless and trying to the temper,
being somehow lived through, the succeeding days passed pleasantly enough.
October was well advanced, but steadily burning with a warmth that made
the early months of the summer appear very young and capricious.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vision Splendid by William MacLeod Raine: form. Out of a sodden sky rain pelted in a black night.
He was turning away when an empty banana crate behind him crashed
down from a pyramid of them. Jeff whirled, was upon her in an
instant before she could escape.
She was shrinking against the wall of the warehouse, her face a
tragic mask in its haggard pallor, a white outline clenched hard
against the driving rain. One hand was at her heart, the other
beat against the air to hold him back.
"Nellie!" he cried.
"What do you want? Let me alone! Let me alone!" She was panting
like a spent deer, and in her wild eyes he saw the hunted look of
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