| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: the Beresina deserted. The multitude were surging to the plain. If a
few men rushed to the river, it was less in the hope of reaching the
other bank, which to them was France, than to rush from the horrors of
Siberia. Despair proved an aegis to some bold hearts. One officer
sprang from ice-cake to ice-cake, and reached the opposite shore. A
soldier clambered miraculously over mounds of dead bodies and heaps of
ice. The multitude finally comprehended that the Russians would not
put to death a body of twenty thousand men, without arms, torpid,
stupid, unable to defend themselves; and each man awaited his fate
with horrible resignation. Then the major and the grenadier, the
general and his wife, remained almost alone on the river bank, a few
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: downstairs and hung up the picture in its place. Hippolyte dined
for the first time with the Baroness, who, greatly overcome, and
drowned in tears, must needs embrace him.
In the evening the old emigre, the Baron de Rouville's old
comrade, paid the ladies a visit to announce that he had just
been promoted to the rank of vice-admiral. His voyages by land
over Germany and Russia had been counted as naval campaigns. On
seeing the portrait he cordially shook the painter's hand, and
exclaimed, "By Gad! though my old hulk does not deserve to be
perpetuated, I would gladly give five hundred pistoles to see
myself as like as that is to my dear old Rouville."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: used as the dwelling-house for the manager of about twenty acres of
vineyard left by him, of five farmsteads, bringing in about six
thousand francs a year, and ten acres of meadow land lying on the
further side of the stream, exactly opposite the little park; indeed,
Madame Sechard hoped to include them in it the next year. La Verberie
was already spoken of in the neighborhood as a chateau, and Eve
Sechard was known as the Lady of Marsac. Lucien, while flattering her
vanity, had only followed the example of the peasants and vine-
dressers. Courtois, the owner of the mill, very picturesquely situated
a few hundred yards from the meadows of La Verberie, was in treaty, it
was said, with Madame Sechard for the sale of his property; and this
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