| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: mere delight of living and the gladness of a new day. The
pagan populace of Antioch--reckless, pleasure-loving,
spendthrift--were preparing for the Saturnalia. But all this
Hermas had renounced. He cleft his way through the crowd
slowly, like a reluctant swimmer weary of breasting the tide.
At the corner of the street where the narrow, populous
Lane of the Camel-drivers crossed the Colonnades, a
storyteller had bewitched a circle of people around him. It
was the same old tale of love and adventure that many
generations have listened to; but the lively fancy of the
hearers rent it new interest, and the wit of the improviser
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: with marvelous skill the dust gathered in the creases.
"Ah, but when she's really hungry!" thought the Frenchman. In spite of
the shudder this thought caused him, the soldier began to measure
curiously the proportions of the panther, certainly one of the most
splendid specimens of its race. She was three feet high and four feet
long without counting her tail; this powerful weapon, rounded like a
cudgel, was nearly three feet long. The head, large as that of a
lioness, was distinguished by a rare expression of refinement. The
cold cruelty of a tiger was dominant, it was true, but there was also
a vague resemblance to the face of a sensual woman. Indeed, the face
of this solitary queen had something of the gaiety of a drunken Nero:
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: professions that go afoot through the street are brought continually
in contact with disease and dishonor; they see nothing of human nature
but its sores; in the forlorn first stages and beginnings of their
career they eye competitors suspiciously and defiantly; concentrated
dislike and ambition flashes out in glances like the breaking forth of
hidden flames. Let two schoolfellows meet after twenty years, the rich
man will avoid the poor; he does not recognize him, he is afraid even
to glance into the gulf which Fate has set between him and the friend
of other years. The one has been borne through life on the mettlesome
steed called Fortune, or wafted on the golden clouds of success; the
other has been making his way in underground Paris through the sewers,
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