| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: tapers within a stone-cast of the church; and we had the superb
east-end before our eyes all morning from the window of our
bedroom. I have seldom looked on the east-end of a church with
more complete sympathy. As it flanges out in three wide terraces
and settles down broadly on the earth, it looks like the poop of
some great old battle-ship. Hollow-backed buttresses carry vases,
which figure for the stern lanterns. There is a roll in the
ground, and the towers just appear above the pitch of the roof, as
though the good ship were bowing lazily over an Atlantic swell. At
any moment it might be a hundred feet away from you, climbing the
next billow. At any moment a window might open, and some old
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: be no harm in looking.'
"In five minutes we were in perfect accord, and I deposited my
bag upon the bare floor of a rustic room, furnished with a bed,
two chairs, a table, and a washstand. The room opened into the
large and smoky kitchen, where the lodgers took their meals with
the people of the farm and with the farmer himself, who was a
widower.
"I washed my hands, after which I went out. The old woman was
fricasseeing a chicken for dinner in a large fireplace, in which
hung the stew-pot, black with smoke.
" 'You have travelers, then, at the present time?' said I to her.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: Belvidero anticipated and resumed all these. All things were a
jest to him. His was the life of a mocking spirit. All men, all
institutions, all realities, all ideas were within its scope. As
for eternity, after half an hour of familiar conversation with
Pope Julius II. he said, laughing:
"If it is absolutely necessary to make a choice, I would rather
believe in God than in the Devil; power combined with goodness
always offers more resources than the spirit of Evil can boast."
"Yes; still God requires repentance in this present world----"
"So you always think of your indulgences," returned Don Juan
Belvidero. "Well, well, I have another life in reserve in which
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