| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: embalmed by a Moorish physician, who in return for this service had
been granted his life, which for heresy and suspicion of magical
practices had been already forfeited, men said, to the Holy Office,
and her body was still lying on its tapestried bier in the black
marble chapel of the Palace, just as the monks had borne her in on
that windy March day nearly twelve years before. Once every month
the King, wrapped in a dark cloak and with a muffled lantern in his
hand, went in and knelt by her side calling out, 'MI REINA! MI
REINA!' and sometimes breaking through the formal etiquette that in
Spain governs every separate action of life, and sets limits even
to the sorrow of a King, he would clutch at the pale jewelled hands
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: So, while the poor Eve in the rue du Rocher went to bed in the sheets
of shame, frightened at the pleasure with which she had listened to
that sham great poet, these three bold minds were trampling with jests
over the tender flowers of her dawning love. Ah! if women only knew
the cynical tone that such men, so humble, so fawning in their
presence, take behind their backs! how they sneer at what they say
they adore! Fresh, pure, gracious being, how the scoffing jester
disrobes and analyzes her! but, even so, the more she loses veils, the
more her beauty shines.
Marie was at this moment comparing Raoul and Felix, without imagining
the danger there might be for her in such comparisons. Nothing could
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: about me--I am so absent-minded!" He searched himself with
hurried movements, but did not find the ill-starred purse. His
memory cruelly retraced the fatal truth, minute by minute. He
distinctly saw the purse lying on the green cloth; but then,
doubtful no longer, he excused Adelaide, telling himself that
persons in misfortune should not be so hastily condemned. There
was, of course, some secret behind this apparently degrading
action. He would not admit that that proud and noble face was a
lie.
At the same time the wretched rooms rose before him, denuded of
the poetry of love which beautifies everything; he saw them dirty
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