| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: fasts, takes the sacrament, and goes to balls and operas very
elegantly dressed; her confessor permits her to combine the mundane
with sanctity. Always in conformity with the Church and with the
world, she presents a living image of the present day, which seems to
have taken the word "legality" for its motto. The conduct of the
marquise shows precisely enough religious devotion to attain under a
new Maintenon to the gloomy piety of the last days of Louis XIV., and
enough worldliness to adopt the habits of gallantry of the first years
of that reign, should it ever be revived. At the present moment she is
strictly virtuous from policy, possibly from inclination. Married for
the last seven years to the Marquis de Listomere, one of those
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: I heard 'bout that whiskey business; and I knowed you
hadn't got the money becuz you'd 'a' got at me some
way or other and told me even if you was mum to
everybody else. Tom, something's always told me
we'd never get holt of that swag."
"Why, Huck, I never told on that tavern-keeper.
YOU know his tavern was all right the Saturday I went
to the picnic. Don't you remember you was to watch
there that night?"
"Oh yes! Why, it seems 'bout a year ago. It
was that very night that I follered Injun Joe to the
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: "Here they come!" shrilled an Indian boy from the top of a pine.
Up the Yukon a black speck appeared against the snow, closely
followed by a second. As these grew larger, more black specks
manifested themselves, but at a goodly distance to the rear.
Gradually they resolved themselves into dogs and sleds, and men
lying flat upon them. "Wolf Fang leads," a lieutenant of police
whispered to Joy. She smiled her interest back.
"Ten to one on Harrington!" cried a Birch Creek King, dragging out
his sack.
"The Queen, her pay you not mooch?" queried Joy.
The lieutenant shook his head.
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