| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: listens to them, he consults them--so naturally superstitious is he.
At this moment the countess turned her eyes upon all these articles of
furniture, as if they were living beings whose help and protection she
implored; but the answer of that sombre luxury seemed to her
inexorable.
Suddenly the tempest redoubled. The poor young woman could augur
nothing favorable as she listened to the threatening heavens, the
changes of which were interpreted in those credulous days according to
the ideas or the habits of individuals. Suddenly she turned her eyes
to the two arched windows at the end of the room; but the smallness of
their panes and the multiplicity of the leaden lines did not allow her
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: much the same hopes on those points as the Mussulmans; and similar
causes should produce similar effects: but those hopes gave them no
strength. Besides, according to the Mussulmans' own account, this was
not their great inspiring idea; and it is absurd to consider the wild
battle-cries of a few imaginative youths, about black-eyed and green-
kerchiefed Houris calling to them from the skies, as representing the
average feelings of a generation of sober and self-restraining men, who
showed themselves actuated by far higher motives.
Another answer, and one very popular now, is that the Mussulmans were
strong, because they believed what they said; and the Greeks weak,
because they did not believe what they said. From this notion I shall
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: bought some tape and needles. The lady still wore mourning, but
she was evidently lightening it, and Ann Eliza saw in this the hope
of future orders. The lady had left the shop about an hour before,
walking away with her graceful step toward Fifth Avenue. She had
wished Ann Eliza good day in her usual affable way, and Ann Eliza
thought how odd it was that they should have been acquainted so
long, and yet that she should not know the lady's name. From this
consideration her mind wandered to the cut of the lady's new
sleeves, and she was vexed with herself for not having noted it
more carefully. She felt Miss Mellins might have liked to know
about it. Ann Eliza's powers of observation had never been
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