| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: resources of mind, shrewd policy, and courage, to maintain themselves
at court against the weight of disfavor which pressed upon them.
During her husband's reign Catherine's amiability to Diane de Poitiers
went to such great lengths that intelligent persons must regard it as
proof of that profound dissimulation which men, events, and the
conduct of Henri II. compelled Catherine de' Medici to employ. But
they go too far when they declare that she never claimed her rights as
wife and queen. In the first place, the sense of dignity which
Catherine possessed in the highest degree forbade her claiming what
historians call her rights as a wife. The ten children of the marriage
explain Henri's conduct; and his wife's maternal occupations left him
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: case he determined to rush out and prevent other eyes from reading the
dreadful secrets contained in that paper.
Presently, however, the voice of Madame de l'Estorade, speaking to
some one at the door of the salon, reassured him as to the success of
his trick, and a moment later she entered the study accompanied by
Monsieur Octave de Camps. Going forward to receive his visitor, he was
able to see through the half-opened door the place where he had thrown
the letter. Not only had it disappeared, but he detected a movement
which assured him that Madame de l'Estorade had tucked it away in that
part of her gown where Louis XIV. did not dare to search for the
secrets of Mademoiselle d'Hautefort.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Glaucus/The Wonders of the Shore by Charles Kingsley: fascination in the study of Natural History, though what it is is
as yet unknown to you. Your daughters, perhaps, have been seized
with the prevailing "Pteridomania," and are collecting and buying
ferns, with Ward's cases wherein to keep them (for which you have
to pay), and wrangling over unpronounceable names of species (which
seem to he different in each new Fern-book that they buy), till the
Pteridomania seems to you somewhat of a bore: and yet you cannot
deny that they find an enjoyment in it, and are more active, more
cheerful, more self-forgetful over it, than they would have been
over novels and gossip, crochet and Berlin-wool. At least you will
confess that the abomination of "Fancy-work" - that standing cloak
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