| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: And now both Riuals to mocke Helena.
A trim exploit, a manly enterprize,
To coniure teares vp in a poore maids eyes,
With your derision; none of noble sort,
Would so offend a Virgin, and extort
A poore soules patience, all to make you sport,
Lysa. You are vnkind Demetrius; be not so,
For you loue Hermia; this you know I know;
And here with all good will, with all my heart,
In Hermias loue I yeeld you vp my part;
And yours of Helena, To me bequeath,
 A Midsummer Night's Dream |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: concentrated upon the holy things, looked like a ray from Heaven
shining down upon the unadorned shrine. The floor was reeking with
damp. An icy wind swept in through the chinks here and there, in a
roof that rose sharply on either side, after the fashion of attic
roofs. Nothing could be less imposing; yet perhaps, too, nothing could
be more solemn than this mournful ceremony. A silence so deep that
they could have heard the faintest sound of a voice on the Route
d'Allemagne, invested the nightpiece with a kind of sombre majesty;
while the grandeur of the service--all the grander for the strong
contrast with the poor surroundings--produced a feeling of reverent
awe.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: it pleasant for the poor spiteful wretch the first time he calls.
I will do you the justice to say, however, that you don't seem to have
told Madame de Cintre; or if you have she's uncommonly magnanimous.
She was very nice; she was tremendously polite.
She and Lizzie sat on the sofa, pressing each other's hands
and calling each other chere belle, and Madame de Cintre sent
me with every third word a magnificent smile, as if to give me
to understand that I too was a handsome dear. She quite made up
for past neglect, I assure you; she was very pleasant and sociable.
Only in an evil hour it came into her head to say that she must
present us to her mother--her mother wished to know your friends.
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