| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: her hopes were uttered in the delicate care given to that room where
she expected to fold her son in her arms. A mother alone could have
thought of all his wants; a choice repast, rare wine, fresh linen,
slippers, in short, everything the tired man would need,--all were
there that nothing might be lacking; the comforts of his home should
reveal to him without words the tenderness of his mother!
"Brigitte!" said the countess, in a heart-rending tone, placing a
chair before the table, as if to give a semblance of reality to her
hopes, and so increase the strength of her illusions.
"Ah! madame, he will come. He is not far off. I haven't a doubt he is
living, and on his way," replied Brigitte. "I put a key in the Bible,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: "I know. You'll have to tell her--and make your peace with her."
She leant back against the bookcases under the window.
"We've had some good times, Master;" she said, with a sigh in her
voice.
And then for a long time we stared at one another in silence.
"We haven't much time left," she said.
"Shall we bolt?" I said.
"And leave all this?" she asked, with her eyes going round the room.
"And that?" And her head indicated Westminster. "No!"
I said no more of bolting.
"We've got to screw ourselves up to surrender," she said.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: That to the right goes to Montauban, where you have doubtless
friends, and can lie hid for a time. Or that to the left leads
to Bordeaux, where you can take ship if you please. And in a
word, Mademoiselle,' I continued, ending a little feebly, 'I hope
that your troubles are now over.'
She turned her face to me--we had both come to a standstill--and
plucked at the fastenings of her mask. But her trembling fingers
had knotted the string, and in a moment she dropped her hand with
a cry of despair. 'But you? You?' she wailed in a voice so
changed that I should not have known it for hers. 'What will you
do? I do not understand, Monsieur.'
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