| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: silver tray.
"Do not let my father see you; he would say something disagreeable;
and as you could not submit to that, we should be done for.--That
odious Marquise d'Espard told him that your mother had been a monthly
nurse and that your sister did ironing----"
"We were in the most abject poverty," replied Lucien, the tears rising
to his eyes. "That is not calumny, but it is most ill-natured gossip.
My sister now is a more than millionaire, and my mother has been dead
two years.--This information has been kept in stock to use just when I
should be on the verge of success here----"
"But what have you done to Madame d'Espard?"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: or the other by the present session of Congress. The last session
really did nothing which can be considered final as to these questions.
The Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the proposed
constitutional amendments, with the amendment already adopted and recognized
as the law of the land, do not reach the difficulty, and cannot,
unless the whole structure of the government is changed from a
government by States to something like a despotic central government,
with power to control even the municipal regulations of States,
and to make them conform to its own despotic will. While there remains
such an idea as the right of each State to control its own local affairs,--
an idea, by the way, more deeply rooted in the minds of men of all sections
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Roads of Destiny by O. Henry: It was three in the afternoon, and in another hour he would be in his
state of beatitude.
"It's time you were making good, sonny," he went on, with an ugly look
on his reddened face. "You're not playing up to me square. You've been
the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have had veal for
every meal on a gold dish if you'd wanted it. Now, Mr. Kid, do you
think it's right to leave me out so long on a husk diet? What's the
trouble? Don't you get your filial eyes on anything that looks like
cash in the Casa Blanca? Don't tell me you don't. Everybody knows
where old Urique keeps his stuff. It's U.S. currency, too; he don't
accept anything else. What's doing? Don't say 'nothing' this time."
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