| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: certain aristocratic insolence, with which the two women hedged
themselves and preserved the spirit of their caste. Bathilde was a
woman of intelligence, a fact which Vinet alone had discovered during
the two months' stay the ladies had made at his house. When he had
fully fathomed the mind of the girl, wounded and disappointed as it
was by the fruitlessness of her beauty and her youth, and enlightened
by the contempt she felt for the men of a period in which money was
the only idol, Vinet, himself surprised, exclaimed,--
"If I could only have married you, Bathilde, I should to-day be Keeper
of the Seals. I should call myself Vinet de Chargeboeuf, and take my
seat as deputy of the Right."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: hastily pointed to a chair as if to bid their guest be seated. Sister
Agathe came of the house of Langeais; her manner seemed to indicate
that once she had been familiar with brilliant scenes, and had
breathed the air of courts. The stranger seemed half pleased, half
distressed when he understood her invitation; he waited to sit down
until the women were seated.
"You are giving shelter to a reverend father who refused to take the
oath, and escaped the massacres at the Carmelites by a miracle----"
"HOSANNA!" Sister Agathe exclaimed eagerly, interrupting the stranger,
while she watched him with curious eyes.
"That is not the name, I think," he said.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe,
And heard the cadenced drip of spilt-out wine,
And the rose-petals falling from the wreath
As the night breezes wandered through the shrine,
And seemed to be in some entranced swoon
Till through the open roof above the full and brimming moon
Flooded with sheeny waves the marble floor,
When from his nook up leapt the venturous lad,
And flinging wide the cedar-carven door
Beheld an awful image saffron-clad
And armed for battle! the gaunt Griffin glared
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