| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: I approached it from one side and the other while, in my room,
I flung myself about, but I always broke down in the monstrous
utterance of names. As they died away on my lips, I said to myself
that I should indeed help them to represent something infamous,
if, by pronouncing them, I should violate as rare a little case
of instinctive delicacy as any schoolroom, probably, had ever known.
When I said to myself: "THEY have the manners to be silent,
and you, trusted as you are, the baseness to speak!"
I felt myself crimson and I covered my face with my hands.
After these secret scenes I chattered more than ever, going on
volubly enough till one of our prodigious, palpable hushes occurred--
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: Lady Bothwell was not without this feeling; and, I believe,
nothing whatever, scarce the restoration of the Stewart line,
could have happened so delicious to her feelings as an
opportunity of being revenged on Sir Philip Forester for the deep
and double injury which had deprived her of a sister and of a
brother. But nothing of him was heard or known till many a year
had passed away.
"At length--it was on a Fastern's E'en (Shrovetide) assembly, at
which the whole fashion of Edinburgh attended, full and frequent,
and when Lady Bothwell had a seat amongst the lady patronesses,
that one of the attendants on the company whispered into her ear
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: "There were some circumstances, not necessary for me to recite,
which aggravated the guilt of the friend beyond measure, and the
deception, that had been carried on to the last moment, was so
base, it produced the most violent effect on my uncle's health and
spirits. His native country, the world! lately a garden of blooming
sweets, blasted by treachery, seemed changed into a parched desert,
the abode of hissing serpents. Disappointment rankled in his heart;
and, brooding over his wrongs, he was attacked by a raging fever,
followed by a derangement of mind, which only gave place to habitual
melancholy, as he recovered more strength of body.
"Declaring an intention never to marry, his relations were
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