| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: somehow I'm strangely without passion - desperately calm. As I
consider the unconscious, the well-meaning ravages of our
appreciative circle I bow my head in submission to some great
natural, some universal accident; I'm rendered almost indifferent,
in fact quite gay (ha-ha!) by the sense of immitigable fate. Lady
Augusta promises me to trace the precious object and let me have it
through the post by the time Paraday's well enough to play his part
with it. The last evidence is that her maid did give it to his
lordship's valet. One would suppose it some thrilling number of
THE FAMILY BUDGET. Mrs. Wimbush, who's aware of the accident, is
much less agitated by it than she would doubtless be were she not
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: irresistible, he did not care to exercise it; they were pliant to his
unexpressed wishes, to his most extravagant caprices, until he felt a
horrible thirst for love, and would have love beyond their power to
give.
The world refused him nothing save faith and prayer, the soothing and
consoling love that is not of this world. He was obeyed--it was a
horrible position.
The torrents of pain, and pleasure, and thought that shook his soul
and his bodily frame would have overwhelmed the strongest human being;
but in him there was a power of vitality proportioned to the power of
the sensations that assailed him. He felt within him a vague immensity
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: own story with a better grace."
He brought the three letters forth as he spoke, arranged them by
their superscriptions, presented the first to my lord, who took it
greedily, and advanced towards Mrs. Henry holding out the second.
But the lady waved it back. "To my husband," says she, with a
choked voice.
The Colonel was a quick man, but at this he was somewhat
nonplussed. "To be sure!" says he; "how very dull of me! To be
sure!" But he still held the letter.
At last Mr. Henry reached forth his hand, and there was nothing to
be done but give it up. Mr. Henry took the letters (both hers and
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