| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: "There we have it! Such a pig! Could he
not wait a while? I will have another try."
Mitia went to his mother. This was his last
hope. His mother was very kind, and hardly
ever refused him anything. She would probably
have helped him this time also out of his trouble,
but she was in great anxiety: her younger child,
Petia, a boy of two, had fallen ill. She got angry
with Mitia for rushing so noisily into the nursery,
and refused him almost without listening to what
he had to say. Mitia muttered something to him-
The Forged Coupon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: It was Mr. Uxbridge.
"I had no thought of meeting you, Miss Huell."
And he coolly took the seat beside me in the window, leaving to
Mrs. Bliss the alternative of standing or of going away; she chose
the latter.
"I saw you as soon as I came in," he said, "gliding from window
to window, like a vessel hugging the shore in a storm."
"With colors at half-mast; I have no dancing partner."
"How many have observed you?"
"Several young gentlemen."
"Moths."
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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: will allow me to hope, not to be yours, but to win your
friendship, I will stay. Let me come, not so very often, if you
require it, to spend a few such hours with you as those stolen
hours of yesterday. The keen delight of that brief happiness to be
cut short at the least over-ardent word from me, will suffice to
enable me to endure the boiling torrent in my veins. Have I
presumed too much upon your generosity by this entreaty to suffer
an intercourse in which all the gain is mine alone? You could find
ways of showing the world, to which you sacrifice so much, that I
am nothing to you; you are so clever and so proud! What have you
to fear? If I could only lay bare my heart to you at this moment,
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