| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: assemblage and the chief instigator of his sister-in-law's policy.
When dinner was well under way, Maxime de Trailles turned to d'Arthez
and said smiling:--
"You see a great deal, don't you, of the Princesse de Cadignan?"
To this question d'Arthez responded by curtly nodding his head. Maxime
de Trailles was a "bravo" of the social order, without faith or law,
capable of everything, ruining the women who trusted him, compelling
them to pawn their diamonds to give him money, but covering this
conduct with a brilliant varnish; a man of charming manners and
satanic mind. He inspired all who knew him with equal contempt and
fear; but as no one was bold enough to show him any sentiments but
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: To pipe again of love, too venturous reed!
Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead.
Too venturous poesy, O why essay
To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings
O'er daring Icarus and bid thy lay
Sleep hidden in the lyre's silent strings
Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill,
Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho's golden quid!
Enough, enough that he whose life had been
A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,
Could in the loveless land of Hades glean
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: examination will show a small abrasion of the paper in the next
leaf exactly where the hole would have come if continued.
In the book quoted it is just as if there had been a race.
In the first ten leaves the weak worms are left behind;
in the second ten there are still forty-eight eaters;
these are reduced to thirty-one in the third ten, and to only
eighteen in the fourth ten. On folio 51 only six worms hold on,
and before folio 61 two of them have given in. Before reaching
folio 7, it is a neck and neck race between two sturdy gourmands,
each making a fine large hole, one of them being oval in shape.
At folio 71 they are still neck and neck, and at folio 81 the same.
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