| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain
attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore
a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best
advantage by a /panier/ and a satin dress embroidered with blue
flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish
arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed
almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a
large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very
becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine,
disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her
without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde: thought and emotion were each isolated in its own sphere through some
violence of will-power. There is nervousness in the nostrils, and in
the pale, thin, pointed hands. It would be inaccurate to call him
picturesque. Picturesqueness cannot survive the House of Commons.
But Vandyck would have liked to have painted his head.]
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Good evening, Lady Markby! I hope you have
brought Sir John with you?
LADY MARKBY. Oh! I have brought a much more charming person than
Sir John. Sir John's temper since he has taken seriously to politics
has become quite unbearable. Really, now that the House of Commons
is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: table, and Peter before the stove were very close together. The
dusk was fast fading into darkness; to this tiny room at the back
of the old house few street sounds penetrated. Round them,
shutting them off together from the world of shops with lighted
windows, rumbling busses and hurrying humanity, lay the old lodge
with its dingy gardens, its whitewashed halls, its dark and
twisting staircases.
Peter had been very careful. He had cultivated a comradely manner
with the girl that had kept her entirely at her ease with him.
But it had been growing increasingly hard. He was only human
after all. And he was very comfortable. Love, healthy human love,
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