| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: bought a bare license. He was a licensed attorney, without a penny, or
a client, or any friends beyond our set; and he was bound to pay
interest on the purchase-money and the cautionary deposit besides."
"He used to make me feel as if I had met a tiger escaped from the
Jardin des Plantes," said Couture. "He was lean and red-haired, his
eyes were the color of Spanish snuff, and his complexion was harsh. He
looked cold and phlegmatic. He was hard upon the widow, pitiless to
the orphan, and a terror to his clerks; they were not allowed to waste
a minute. Learned, crafty, double-faced, honey-tongued, never flying
into a passion, rancorous in his judicial way."
"But there is goodness in him," cried Finot; "he is devoted to his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twilight Land by Howard Pyle: cloth-of-gold had been spread for him to walk upon, and crowds of
slaves stood waiting to receive him. But for all these glories
Abdallah cared nothing; he hardly looked about him, but, going
straight to his room, pressed his ring and summoned the Genie.
"What is it that my lord would have?" asked the monster.
"Oh, Genie!" said poor Abdallah, "I would have the princess for
my wife, for without her I am like to die."
"My lord's commands," said the Genie, "shall be executed if I
have to tear down the city to do so. But perhaps this behest is
not so hard to fulfil. First of all, my lord will have to have an
ambassador to send to the king."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: in retirement; he adored the union of so rare a mind and so noble a
soul; and he longed to become, himself, the heir of Michel Chrestien.
The beginning of this passion was, as in the case of almost all deep
thinkers, an idea. Looking at the princess, studying the shape of her
head, the arrangement of those sweet features, her figure, her hand,
so finely modelled, closer than when he accompanied his friend in
their wild rush through the streets, he was struck by the surprising
phenomenon of the moral second-sight which a man exalted by love
invariably finds within him. With what lucidity had Michel Chrestien
read into that soul, that heart, illumined by the fires of love! Thus
the princess acquired, in d'Arthez's eyes, another charm; a halo of
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