| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: "Had I been Alexander - " he began.
"It is so we all dupe ourselves," I cried. "Had I been St. Paul,
it would have been all one; I would have made the same hash of that
career that you now see me making of my own."
"I tell you," he cried, bearing down my interruption, "had I been
the least petty chieftain in the Highlands, had I been the least
king of naked negroes in the African desert, my people would have
adored me. A bad man, am I? Ah! but I was born for a good tyrant!
Ask Secundra Dass; he will tell you I treat him like a son. Cast
in your lot with me to-morrow, become my slave, my chattel, a thing
I can command as I command the powers of my own limbs and spirit -
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: petulant child--he preferred to think it was like a madman. If
he and Susy were to separate there was no reason why it should
not be done decently and quietly, as such transactions were
habitually managed among people of their kind. It seemed
grotesque to introduce melodrama into their little world of
unruffled Sybarites, and he felt inclined, now, to smile at the
incongruity of his gesture .... But suddenly his eyes filled
with tears. The future without Susy was unbearable,
inconceivable. Why, after all, should they separate? At the
question, her soft face seemed close to his, and that slight
lift of the upper lip that made her smile so exquisite. Well-
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: to say good-bye. He took refuge by anticipation, as it were,
in this reflection, whenever, for the next three or four days,
he foresaw himself stopping short, as he had done before,
and asking himself whether he had done an injury to Angela Vivian.
This was an idle and unpractical question, inasmuch as the answer
was not forthcoming; whereas it was quite simple and conclusive
to say, without the note of interrogation, that she was,
in spite of many attractive points, an abrupt and capricious
young woman. During the three or four days in question,
Bernard lingered on at Baden, uncertain what to do or
where to go, feeling as if he had received a sudden check--
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