| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: Without unmasking at once all the batteries of his superior intellect,
Marcas came a little further than before; he showed half his
shrewdness. The Ministry lasted only a hundred and eighty days; it was
swallowed up. Marcas had put himself into communication with certain
deputies, had moulded them like dough, leaving each impressed with a
high opinion of his talent; his puppet again became a member of the
Ministry, and then the paper was ministerial. The Ministry united the
paper with another, solely to squeeze out Marcas, who in this fusion
had to make way for a rich and insolent rival, whose name was well
known, and who already had his foot in the stirrup.
Marcas relapsed into utter destitution; his haughty patron well knew
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: She has conscientiously struggled against it, but to no purpose.
I cannot bear it--I cannot! I can't answer her arguments--she has
read ten times as much as I. Her intellect sparkles like diamonds,
while mine smoulders like brown paper.... She's one too many
for me!"
"She'll get over it, good-now?"
"Never! It is--but I won't go into it--there are reasons why she never will.
At last she calmly and firmly asked if she might leave me and go to him.
The climax came last night, when, owing to my entering her room by accident,
she jumped out of window--so strong was her dread of me! She pretended it
was a dream, but that was to soothe me. Now when a woman jumps out of window
Jude the Obscure |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Love Songs by Sara Teasdale: "I Am Not Yours"
I am not yours, not lost in you,
Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.
You love me, and I find you still
A spirit beautiful and bright,
Yet I am I, who long to be
Lost as a light is lost in light.
Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out
My senses, leave me deaf and blind,
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