| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: was another Don Juan in female attire, with this difference: she would
certainly not have invited the Commander to supper, and would have got
the better of any statue.
It is impossible to continue this tale without saying a word about the
Prince de Cadignan, better known under the name of the Duc de
Maufrigneuse, otherwise the spice of the princess's confidences would
be lost, and strangers would not understand the Parisian comedy she
was about to play for her man of genius.
The Duc de Maufrigneuse, like a true son of the old Prince de
Cadignan, is a tall, lean man, of elegant shape, very graceful, a
sayer of witty things, colonel by the grace of God, and a good soldier
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: as artfully contrived as that in use in Limousin. Unconsciously the
commandant paused to look at the ruins of the village before him.
How is it that men can never behold any ruins, even of the humblest
kind, without feeling deeply stirred? Doubtless it is because they
seem to be a typical representation of evil fortune whose weight is
felt so differently by different natures. The thought of death is
called up by a churchyard, but a deserted village puts us in mind of
the sorrows of life; death is but one misfortune always foreseen, but
the sorrows of life are infinite. Does not the thought of the infinite
underlie all great melancholy?
The officer reached the stony path by the mill-pond before he could
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: score of attentions which I was very ill able to repay. It was all in
vain to tell myself I was a young follow of some worth as well as a
good estate, and had no call to feel abashed before these lasses, the
eldest not so much older than myself, and no one of them by any
probability half as learned. Reasoning would not change the fact; and
there were times when the colour came into my face to think I was
shaved that day for the first time.
The talk going, with all their endeavours, very heavily, the eldest
took pity on my awkwardness, sat down to her instrument, of which she
was a passed mistress, and entertained me for a while with playing and
singing, both in the Scots and in the Italian manners; this put me more
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