The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: Alfred reminds me very much of what you were at his age:
he's got the same good opinion of himself, too--and he's
not a bit fonder of hard work."
"There's one mighty big difference between us, though,"
remarked Thorpe. "He won't start with his nose held
down to the grindstone by an old father hard as nails.
He'll start like a gentleman--the nephew of a rich man."
"I'm almost afraid to have such notions put in his head,"
she replied, with visible apprehension. "You mustn't encourage
him to build too high hopes, Joel. It's speculation,
you know--and anything might happen to you. And then--you
 The Market-Place |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: but from herself, and her letters to the very last were
neither less frequent, nor less affectionate than usual.
Not the smallest suspicion, therefore, had ever occurred
to prepare him for what followed;--and when at last it
burst on him in a letter from Lucy herself, he had been
for some time, he believed, half stupified between
the wonder, the horror, and the joy of such a deliverance.
He put the letter into Elinor's hands.
"DEAR SIR,
"Being very sure I have long lost your affections,
I have thought myself at liberty to bestow my own
 Sense and Sensibility |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: a girl in love, to live exclusively in the little apartment where
everything attracted him.
And never was there a purer or more ardent love. On both sides
the same trustfulness, the same delicacy, gave their passion
increase without the aid of those sacrifices by which many
persons try to prove their affection. Between these two there was
such a constant interchange of sweet emotion that they knew not
which gave or received the most.
A spontaneous affinity made the union of their souls a close one.
The progress of this true feeling was so rapid that two months
after the accident to which the painter owed the happiness of
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