| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: sentiments; you have a sacred relic round your neck."
Madame Crochard, with a feeble vagueness which seemed to show that she
had not all her wits about her, pulled out the Imperial Cross of the
Legion of Honor. The priest started back at seeing the Emperor's head;
he went up to the penitent again, and she spoke to him, but in such a
low tone that for some minutes Francoise could hear nothing.
"Woe upon me!" cried the old woman suddenly. "Do not desert me. What,
Monsieur l'Abbe, do you think I shall be called to account for my
daughter's soul?"
The Abbe spoke too low, and the partition was too thick for Francoise
to hear the reply.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: eared; his intellect seemed more feeble, his life nearer the
fatal term than in the former. In short, he realized Rivarol's
witticism on Champcenetz, "He is the moonlight of me." He was
simply his double, a paler and poorer double, for there was
between them all the difference that lies between the first and
last impressions of a lithograph.
This speechless old man was a mystery to the painter, and always
remained a mystery. The Chevalier, for he was a Chevalier, did
not speak, nobody spoke to him. Was he a friend, a poor relation,
a man who followed at the old gallant's heels as a lady companion
does at an old lady's? Did he fill a place midway between a dog,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: women, take a good bachelor and a good wife.
I am often filled with wonder that so many marriages are
passably successful, and so few come to open failure, the more
so as I fail to understand the principle on which people
regulate their choice. I see women marrying indiscriminately
with staring burgesses and ferret-faced, white-eyed boys, and
men dwell in contentment with noisy scullions, or taking into
their lives acidulous vestals. It is a common answer to say
the good people marry because they fall in love; and of course
you may use and misuse a word as much as you please, if you
have the world along with you. But love is at least a
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