| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: me? If you must go, why should I not follow you? You show me,
Paul, that I am not indispensable to you. What have I done, to be
deprived of my rights? Surely I count for something in this ruin.
My luxuries have weighed somewhat in the scale. You make me curse
the happy, careless life we have led for the last five years. To
know that you are banished from France for years is enough to kill
me. How soon can a fortune be made in India? Will you ever return?
I was right when I refused, with instinctive obstinacy, that
separation as to property which my mother and you were so
determined to carry out. What did I tell you then? Did I not warn
you that it was casting a reflection upon you, and would ruin your
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: Jimmie suddenly leaned forward with his head on one side.
He snarled like a wild animal.
"Well, what if we does? See?" said he.
Dark blood flushed into Pete's face, and he shot a lurid
glance at Jimmie.
"Well, den we'll see whose deh bes' man, you or me," he said.
The quiet stranger moved modestly toward the door.
Jimmie began to swell with valor.
"Don' pick me up fer no tenderfoot. When yeh tackles me yeh
tackles one of deh bes' men in deh city. See? I'm a scrapper,
I am. Ain't dat right, Billie?"
 Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: kind of got into the habit of leaving the heavy role to me, and
confining herself to thinking parts. One day I took twenty dollars
and came to the city. Oh, I paid it back long ago, but I've never
been home since. But say, do you know every time I get near a news
stand like this I grab the home-town paper. I'll bet I've kept
track every time my sister-in-law's sewing circle has met for the
last ten years, and the spring the paper said they built a new
porch I was just dying to write and ask'em what they did with the
Virginia creeper that used to cover the whole front and sides of
the old porch."
"Look here," said the man, very abruptly, "if it's money you
 Buttered Side Down |