| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: this answer.
"My dear, do you feel yourself in full beauty and coquetry?" she said.
"If so, come and dine with me a few days hence, and I'll serve up
d'Arthez. Our man of genius is by nature, it seems, a savage; he fears
women, and has never loved! Make your plans on that. He is all
intellect, and so simple that he'll mislead you into feeling no
distrust. But his penetration, which is wholly retrospective, acts
later, and frustrates calculation. You may hoodwink him to-day, but
to-morrow nothing can dupe him."
"Ah!" cried the princess, "if I were only thirty years old what
amusement I might have with him! The one enjoyment I have lacked up to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: Margaret must remain, unless Lemorne is defeated."
"Aunt, for your succinct biography of my position many thanks."
"Sixty thousand dollars," she continued. "Van Horn tells me that,
as yet, the firm of Uxbridge Brothers have only an income--no
capital."
"It is true," he answered, musingly.
The clock on the mantle struck two.
"A thousand dollars for every year of my life," she said. "You
and I, Uxbridge, know the value and beauty of money.
"Yes, there is beauty in money, and"--looking at me--"beauty
without it."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: and the wind driving us towards the shore, we hastened our
destruction with our own hands, pulling as well as we could towards
land.
What the shore was, whether rock or sand, whether steep or shoal,
we knew not. The only hope that could rationally give us the least
shadow of expectation was, if we might find some bay or gulf, or
the mouth of some river, where by great chance we might have run
our boat in, or got under the lee of the land, and perhaps made
smooth water. But there was nothing like this appeared; but as we
made nearer and nearer the shore, the land looked more frightful
than the sea.
 Robinson Crusoe |