| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chita: A Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn: old churchyard at Barcelona. She had tried to become
resigned,--not to think. But the child would come back night
after night, though the earth lay heavy upon her--night after
night, through long distances of Time and Space. Oh! the fancied
clinging of infant-lips!--the thrilling touch of little ghostly
hands!--those phantom-caresses that torture mothers' hearts! ...
Night after night, through many a month of pain. Then for a time
the gentle presence ceased to haunt her,--seemed to have lain
down to sleep forever under the high bright grass and yellow
flowers. Why did it return, that night of all nights, to kiss
her, to cling to her, to nestle in her arms?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: are we going to stop everything?"
"Stop everything, Laura!" cried Jose in astonishment. "What do you mean?"
"Stop the garden-party, of course." Why did Jose pretend?
But Jose was still more amazed. "Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura,
don't be so absurd. Of course we can't do anything of the kind. Nobody
expects us to. Don't be so extravagant."
"But we can't possibly have a garden-party with a man dead just outside the
front gate."
That really was extravagant, for the little cottages were in a lane to
themselves at the very bottom of a steep rise that led up to the house. A
broad road ran between. True, they were far too near. They were the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: person gave him a sort of fever. He was like those little insects for
whom God seems to temper the violence of the wind and the heat of the
sun; incapable, like them, of struggling against the slightest
obstacle, he yielded, as they do, without resistance or complaint, to
everything that seemed to him aggressive. This angelic patience
inspired in the mother a sentiment which took away all fatigue from
the incessant care required by so frail a being.
Soon his precocious perception of suffering revealed to him the power
that he had upon his mother; often he tried to divert her with
caresses and make her smile at his play; and never did his coaxing
hands, his stammered words, his intelligent laugh fail to rouse her
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