| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: have left the protecting roof of the embassy, and am now safe from
all inquiry in the rue des Enfants-Rouges, number 12, with an old
woman, Madame Etienne Gruget, mother of that Ida, who shall pay
dear for her folly. Come to-morrow, at nine in the morning. I am
in a room which is reached only by an interior staircase. Ask for
Monsieur Camuset. Adieu; I kiss your forehead, my darling."
Jacquet looked at Jules with a sort of honest terror, the sign of a
true compassion, as he made his favorite exclamation in two separate
and distinct tones,--
"The deuce! the deuce!"
"That seems clear to you, doesn't it?" said Jules. "Well, in the
 Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: police director.
The plans were very quickly settled. The police director had the
chapel opened and went in with the young Latitudinarian; then he
told the police sergeant to lock the door behind him and to put
the key back where he had found it, and to shut the window of the
sexton's cottage carefully. Lastly, he made arrangements as to
what they were to do, in case anything unforeseen should occur,
whereupon the sergeant and the constable left the churchyard, and
lay down in a ditch at some distance from the gate, but opposite
to it.
Almost as soon as the clock struck half past eleven, they heard
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: could not help fearing that, where the Saint is so much commanded
for exactitude, he will be expected to be very grateful for his
tablet.
This is foolishness to us Protestants; and not of great importance
anyway. Whether people's gratitude for the good gifts that come to
them be wisely conceived or dutifully expressed, is a secondary
matter, after all, so long as they feel gratitude. The true
ignorance is when a man does not know that he has received a good
gift, or begins to imagine that he has got it for himself. The
self-made man is the funniest windbag after all! There is a marked
difference between decreeing light in chaos, and lighting the gas
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