| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: it seemed to me dimly as if something depended upon that. I heard
him relate, among many other things, that there were pickpockets on
the train, who had already robbed a man of forty dollars and a
return ticket; but though I caught the words, I do not think I
properly understood the sense until next morning; and I believe I
replied at the time that I was very glad to hear it. What else he
talked about I have no guess; I remember a gabbling sound of words,
his profuse gesticulation, and his smile, which was highly
explanatory: but no more. And I suppose I must have shown my
confusion very plainly; for, first, I saw him knit his brows at me
like one who has conceived a doubt; next, he tried me in German,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: point of making no attempt at concealment.
"I see plainly that you have fallen into the gulf of apathy," he
cried. "If there is a degree of physical suffering at which all sense
of modesty expires, there is also a degree of moral suffering in which
all vigor of soul is lost; I know that."
She was surprised to hear that subtle observation and to find such
tender pity from this village rector; but, as we have seen already,
the exquisite delicacy which no passion had ever touched gave him the
true maternal spirit for his flock. This /mens devinior/, this
apostolic tenderness, places the priest above all other men and makes
him, in a sense, divine. Madame Graslin had not as yet had enough
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: heart when a close scrutiny revealed the marks made by decrepitude
upon that frail machine.
He wore a white waistcoat embroidered with gold, in the old style, and
his linen was of dazzling whiteness. A shirt-frill of English lace,
yellow with age, the magnificence of which a queen might have envied,
formed a series of yellow ruffles on his breast; but upon him the lace
seemed rather a worthless rag than an ornament. In the centre of the
frill a diamond of inestimable value gleamed like a sun. That
superannuated splendor, that display of treasure, of great intrinsic
worth, but utterly without taste, served to bring out in still bolder
relief the strange creature's face. The frame was worthy of the
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