| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: hasn't got a sense of humor, because I know better.
And memory, too. They brought jays here from all over
the United States to look down that hole, every summer
for three years. Other birds, too. And they could all
see the point except an owl that come from Nova Scotia
to visit the Yo Semite, and he took this thing in on
his way back. He said he couldn't see anything funny
in it. But then he was a good deal disappointed about
Yo Semite, too." Humor, a jay knows when he is an ass just
as well as you do--maybe better. If a jay ain't human,
he better take in his sign, that's all. Now I'm going
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: francs a year,'--that silly wish we all make, laughing; to bring
opulence to a family sitting by the light of one miserable lamp over a
poor turf fire!--no, words cannot describe it. My extreme justice
seemed to them unjust. Well! if there is a Paradise my father is happy
in it now. As for me, I am loved as no man was ever loved yet. Madame
Firmiani gives me more than happiness; she has inspired me with a
delicacy of feeling I think I lacked. So I call her MY DEAR
CONSCIENCE,--a love-word which expresses certain secret harmonies
within our hearts. I find honesty profitable; I shall get rich in time
by myself. I've an industrial scheme in my head, and if it succeeds I
shall earn millions."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: obscure a mood of the soul, that none but a young man, or a man in
like case, can fully understand its mute ecstasies and its vagaries,
matter to set those people who are lucky enough to see life only in
its matter-of-fact aspect shrugging their shoulders. After painful
hesitation, Gaston wrote to Mme. de Beauseant. Here is the letter,
which may serve as a sample of the epistolary style peculiar to
lovers, a performance which, like the drawings prepared with great
secrecy by children for the birthdays of father or mother, is found
insufferable by every mortal except the recipients:--
"MADAME,--Your power over my heart, my soul, myself, is so great
that my fate depends wholly upon you to-day. Do not throw this
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