| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: happened to be again in Eugene's apartment.
"Joseph is right," I said.
Eugene turned and looked at me.
"I read the addresses quite involuntarily, and--"
"And," interrupted Eugene, "one of them was NOT for Madame de
Nucingen?"
"No, by all the devils, it was not. Consequently, I supposed, my dear
fellow, that your heart was wandering from the rue Saint-Lazare to the
rue Saint-Dominique."
Eugene struck his forehead with the flat of his hand and began to
laugh; by which Joseph perceived that the blame was not on him.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: amongst which were the identical pearl necklace and bracelets
which she had once before received as a present from his father.
He then led her into a splendid room, which she had not before
seen, and in which an exquisite collation was served; she was
waited upon by the new servants, whom he had hired purposely for
her, and whom he now desired to consider themselves as
exclusively her attendants; the carriage and the horses were
afterwards paraded, and he then proposed a game of cards, until
supper should be announced.
"`I acknowledge,' continued Manon, `that I was dazzled by all
this magnificence. It struck me that it would be madness to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from War and the Future by H. G. Wells: I am reminded of a story, or rather of the idea for a story that
I think I must have read in that curious collection of fantasies
and observations, Hawthorne's /Note Book./ It was to be the
story of a man who found life dull and his circumstances
altogether mediocre. He had loved his wife, but now after all
she seemed to be a very ordinary human being. He had begun life
with high hopes--and life was commonplace. He was to grow
fretful and restless. His discontent was to lead to some action,
some irrevocable action; but upon the nature of that action I do
not think the /Note Book/ was very clear. It was to carry
him in such a manner that he was to forget his wife. Then, when
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