| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: this absorption of the man's nature became more observable, with
many touching and some very blameworthy particulars. Soon the
child could walk abroad with him, at first on the terrace, hand in
hand, and afterward at large about the policies; and this grew to
be my lord's chief occupation. The sound of their two voices
(audible a great way off, for they spoke loud) became familiar in
the neighbourhood; and for my part I found it more agreeable than
the sound of birds. It was pretty to see the pair returning, full
of briars, and the father as flushed and sometimes as bemuddied as
the child, for they were equal sharers in all sorts of boyish
entertainment, digging in the beach, damming of streams, and what
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: egoism which has been the ruin of this world within a world. The
privileges above enumerated are the birthright of the French
noblesse, as of every patrician efflorescence ever formed on the
surface of a nation; and will continue to be theirs so long as
their existence is based upon real estate, or money; domaine-sol
and domaine-argent alike, the only solid bases of an organised
society; but such privileges are held upon the understanding that
the patricians must continue to justify their existence. There
is a sort of moral fief held on a tenure of service rendered to
the sovereign, and here in France the people are undoubtedly the
sovereigns nowadays. The times are changed, and so are the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: of the Citizen-King, could a Tullia, now metamorphosed into a Mme. du
Bruel, be accepted in the society which her good sense prevented her
from attempting to enter. Mme. de Bonfalot, Mme. de Chisse, and Mme.
du Bruel received her; she was satisfied. She took up the position of
a well-conducted, simple, and virtuous woman, and never acted out of
character. In three years' time she was introduced to the friends of
these ladies.
" 'And still I cannot persuade myself that young Mme. du Bruel used to
display her ankles, and the rest, to all Paris, with the light of a
hundred gas-jets pouring upon her,' Mme. Anselme Popinot remarked
naively.
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