| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: His pale and hollow cheeks, his pure brow, lined with a few furrows,
expressed a condition of suffering which was painful to witness. His
mouth, always gracious, and adorned with very white teeth, wore the
sort of fixed smile which we often see on the lips of the dying. His
hands, white as those of a woman, were remarkably handsome. The habit
of meditation had taught him to droop his head like a fragile flower,
and the attitude was in keeping with his person; it was like the last
grace that a great artist touches into a portrait to bring out its
latent thought. Etienne's head was that of a delicate girl placed upon
the weakly and deformed body of a man.
Poesy, the rich meditations of which make us roam like botanists
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: even on their former wages the telephone girls had been hungry, he was
troubled. "All lies and fake figures," he said, but in a doubtful croak.
For the Sunday after, the Chatham Road Presbyterian Church announced a sermon
by Dr. John Jennison Drew on "How the Saviour Would End Strikes." Babbitt had
been negligent about church-going lately, but he went to the service, hopeful
that Dr. Drew really did have the information as to what the divine powers
thought about strikes. Beside Babbitt in the large, curving, glossy,
velvet-upholstered pew was Chum Frink.
Frink whispered, "Hope the doc gives the strikers hell! Ordinarily, I don't
believe in a preacher butting into political matters--let him stick to
straight religion and save souls, and not stir up a lot of discussion--but at
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: fancied he saw, a mass of persons, and he dashed down a cross street
to avoid them. But already every window was open, and heads were
thrust forth right and left, while from every door came shouts and
gleams of light. Diard kept on, going straight before him, through the
lights and the noise; and his legs were so actively agile that he soon
left the tumult behind him, though without being able to escape some
eyes which took in the extent of his course more rapidly than he could
cover it. Inhabitants, soldiers, gendarmes, every one, seemed afoot in
the twinkling of an eye. Some men awoke the commissaries of police,
others stayed by the body to guard it. The pursuit kept on in the
direction of the fugitive, who dragged it after him like the flame of
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