| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: way; others pick off the gunners; still others the officers;
while certain other quotas concentrate their attention upon the
other members of the crew, upon the upper works, and upon the
steering gear and propellers.
Twenty minutes after the first volley the great fleet swung
trailing off in the direction from which it had first appeared.
Several of the craft were limping perceptibly, and seemed
but barely under the control of their depleted crews. Their fire
had ceased entirely and all their energies seemed focused
upon escape. Our warriors then rushed up to the roofs of the
buildings which we occupied and followed the retreating armada
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: passed into the body of the clarionet player.
The fiddle and the flageolet were neither of them interesting; their
faces were of the ordinary type among the blind--earnest, attentive,
and grave. Not so the clarionet player; any artist or philosopher must
have come to a stop at the sight of him.
Picture to yourself a plaster mask of Dante in the red lamplight, with
a forest of silver-white hair above the brows. Blindness intensified
the expression of bitterness and sorrow in that grand face of his; the
dead eyes were lighted up, as it were, by a thought within that broke
forth like a burning flame, lit by one sole insatiable desire, written
large in vigorous characters upon an arching brow scored across with
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: "I might have guessed it," she said, with a contemptuous smile.
"Monsieur Birotteau doesn't often read books of that size."
"How are you, mademoiselle?" said the vicar, in a mellifluous voice.
"Not very well," she replied, shortly. "You woke me up last night out
of my first sleep, and I was wakeful for the rest of the night." Then,
sitting down, she added, "Gentlemen, the milk is getting cold."
Stupefied at being so ill-naturedly received by his landlady, from
whom he half expected an apology, and yet alarmed, like all timid
people at the prospect of a discussion, especially if it relates to
themselves, the poor vicar took his seat in silence. Then, observing
in Mademoiselle Gamard's face the visible signs of ill-humour, he was
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