| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: his figure, but spontaneously, and not even merely in return for his
own love; a young man, I say, who has found love in the abstract, to
quote Royer-Collard, might yet very possibly find never a farthing in
the purse which She, loving and beloved, embroidered for him; he might
owe rent to his landlord; he might be unable to pay the bootmaker
before mentioned; his very tailor, like France herself, might at last
show signs of disaffection. In short, he might have love and yet be
poor. And poverty spoils a young man's happiness, unless he holds our
transcendental views of the fusion of interests. I know nothing more
wearing than happiness within combined with adversity without. It is
as if you had one leg freezing in the draught from the door, and the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: should not betray her extreme fatigue.
But sometimes, as if her heart had ceased to beat for an
instant, her limbs tottered, her steps flagged, her arms fell
to her sides, she dropped behind. Michael then stopped, he
fixed his eyes on the poor girl, as though he would try to
pierce the gloom which surrounded him; his breast heaved;
then, supporting his companion more than before, he started
on afresh.
However, amidst these continual miseries, a fortunate cir-
cumstance on that day occurred which it appeared likely
would considerably ease their fatigue. They had been
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: favourably known to the feminine population of the quarter
bordering on Stuyvesant Square.
It was a very small shop, in a shabby basement, in a side-
street already doomed to decline; and from the miscellaneous
display behind the window-pane, and the brevity of the sign
surmounting it (merely "Bunner Sisters" in blotchy gold on a black
ground) it would have been difficult for the uninitiated to guess
the precise nature of the business carried on within. But that was
of little consequence, since its fame was so purely local that the
customers on whom its existence depended were almost congenitally
aware of the exact range of "goods" to be found at Bunner Sisters'.
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