| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: the forest. Summer insects danced on the air, and a
flock of white butterflies fanned the mobile tips of
the crimson fireweed. In the valley below not a house
was visible; it seemed as if Charity Royall and young
Harney were the only living beings in the great hollow
of earth and sky.
Charity's spirits flagged and disquieting thoughts
stole back on her. Young Harney had grown silent,
and as he lay beside her, his arms under his head, his
eyes on the network of leaves above him, she wondered
if he were musing on what Mr. Royall had told him, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: trees of a lime-tree avenue planted in a gully below the vineyards.
There are only two acres of vineyard at most, the ground rising at the
back of the house so steeply that it is no very easy matter to
scramble up among the vines. The slope, covered with green trailing
shoots, ends within about five feet of the house wall in a ditch-like
passage always damp and cold and full of strong growing green things,
fed by the drainage of the highly cultivated ground above, for rainy
weather washes down the manure into the garden on the terrace.
A vinedresser's cottage also leans against the western gable, and is
in some sort a continuation of the kitchen. Stone walls or espaliers
surround the property, and all sorts of fruit-trees are planted among
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: manner--"
"My manner?"
"Whenever the book was mentioned. Things you said--once or twice--
your irritation--I can't explain--"
Glennard, unconsciously, had moved nearer. He breathed like a man
who has been running. "You knew, then, you knew"--he stammered.
The avowal of her love for Flamel would have hurt him less, would
have rendered her less remote. "You knew--you knew--" he
repeated; and suddenly his anguish gathered voice. "My God!" he
cried, "you suspected it first, you say--and then you knew it--
this damnable, this accursed thing; you knew it months ago--it's
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