| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: He perceived at last from her reflection in the mirror, as he was passing
that her hands were idle and that she was looking at him intently.
She evidently wished to say something, and Newman, perceiving it,
helped her to begin.
"You are English?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, please," she answered, quickly and softly;
"I was born in Wiltshire."
"And what do you think of Paris?"
"Oh, I don't think of Paris, sir," she said in the same tone.
"It is so long since I have been here."
"Ah, you have been here very long?"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: gardener returned.
"Hold your tongue!" replied the old man, irascibly. Suddenly he
seized the boy by his two thin little shoulders with knotted old
hands.
"Look at here, Tommy, whatever you know, you keep your mouth
shet, and whatever you don't know, you keep your mouth shet, if
you know what's good for you," he said, in a fierce whisper.
The boy whistled and shrugged his shoulders loose. "You know I
ain't goin' to tell tales, grandpa," he said, in a curiously
manly fashion.
The old man nodded. "All right, Tommy. I don't believe you be,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: gold which thinks, gold which loves, and is determined to take refuge
in your pocket."
"My dear fellow, we are full of her!" cried Paul. "She comes here
sometimes--/the girl with the golden eyes/! That is the name we have
given her. She is a young creature--not more than twenty-two, and I
have seen her here in the time of the Bourbons, but with a woman who
was worth a hundred thousand of her."
"Silence, Paul! It is impossible for any woman to surpass this girl;
she is like the cat who rubs herself against your legs; a white girl
with ash-colored hair, delicate in appearance, but who must have downy
threads on the third phalanx of her fingers, and all along her cheeks
 The Girl with the Golden Eyes |