| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: into which you have persuaded your friends this evening. You are, I
cannot doubt, expecting your son."
The countess made a gesture of denial; but she had turned pale, the
muscles of her face contracted from the effort that she made to
exhibit firmness, and the implacable eye of the public prosecutor lost
none of her movements.
"Well, receive him," continued the functionary of the Revolution, "but
do not keep him under your roof later than seven o'clock in the
morning. To-morrow, at eight, I shall be at your door with a
denunciation."
She looked at him with a stupid air that might have made a tiger
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Weir of Hermiston by Robert Louis Stevenson: but naetural. Mony had come before, and I would nane o' them. But this
yin had a tongue to wile the birds frae the lift and the bees frae the
foxglove bells. Deary me, but it's lang syne! Folk have dee'd sinsyne
and been buried, and are forgotten, and bairns been born and got merrit
and got bairns o' their ain. Sinsyne woods have been plantit, and have
grawn up and are bonny trees, and the joes sit in their shadow, and
sinsyne auld estates have changed hands, and there have been wars and
rumours of wars on the face of the earth. And here I'm still - like an
auld droopit craw - lookin' on and craikin'! But, Mr. Erchie, do ye no
think that I have mind o' it a' still? I was dwalling then in my
faither's house; and it's a curious thing that we were whiles trysted in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: with opposition from the tenants; and it was to overawe discontent
that he had led his troops that way.
By two in the morning, Sir Daniel sat in the inn room, close by the
fireside, for it was cold at that hour among the fens of Kettley.
By his elbow stood a pottle of spiced ale. He had taken off his
visored headpiece, and sat with his bald head and thin, dark visage
resting on one hand, wrapped warmly in a sanguine-coloured cloak.
At the lower end of the room about a dozen of his men stood sentry
over the door or lay asleep on benches; and somewhat nearer hand, a
young lad, apparently of twelve or thirteen, was stretched in a
mantle on the floor. The host of the Sun stood before the great
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