The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: are in the heart of Spain or the far East. It is the voice of
Abencerrage, and it is the scimitar, the horse, and the head of
Abencerrage which he offers, prostrate before a Catholic Eve! Shall I
accept this last descendant of the Moors? Read again and again his
Hispano-Saracenic letter, Renee dear, and you will see how love makes
a clean sweep of all the Judaic bargains of your philosophy.
Renee, your letter lies heavy on my heart; you have vulgarized life
for me. What need have I for finessing? Am I not mistress for all time
of this lion whose roar dies out in plaintive and adoring sighs? Ah!
how he must have raged in his lair of the Rue Hillerin-Bertin! I know
where he lives, I have his card: /F., Baron de Macumer/.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: resolutely commenced her labors.
At noon she had made half the quantity required. Mrs. Howard was
then obliged to go home, and attend to her own family, for she
had two children besides Tommy, who had not yet returned from the
East Indies. Mrs. Redburn was very restless during the afternoon,
and could not be left alone for more than a short time at once.
Mrs. Howard had promised to come again in the evening, and make
the rest of the candy; but Charley came home from school quite
sick, seemingly threatened with the scarlet fever, so that she
could not keep her promise. Mrs. Sneed, however, dropped in, and
consented to remain for two hours, which enabled Katy to make the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: Smiling they came, garlanded green, not dreaming of wrong;
And for every three, a pig, tenderly cooked in the ground,
Waited, and fei, the staff of life, heaped in a mound
For each where he sat; - for each, bananas roasted and raw
Piled with a bountiful hand, as for horses hay and straw
Are stacked in a stable; and fish, the food of desire, (13)
And plentiful vessels of sauce, and breadfruit gilt in the fire; -
And kava was common as water. Feasts have there been ere now,
And many, but never a feast like that of the folk of Vaiau.
All day long they ate with the resolute greed of brutes,
And turned from the pigs to the fish, and again from the fish to the fruits,
Ballads |