| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: Paris, which survived both the Clichiens and the fashionable youths.
In those days fashions sometimes lasted longer than parties,--a
symptom of anarchy which the year of our Lord 1830 has again presented
to us. This accomplished dandy seemed to be thirty years of age. His
manners were those of good society; he wore jewels of value; the
collar of his shirt came to the tops of his ears. His conceited and
even impertinent air betrayed a consciousness of hidden superiority.
His pallid face seemed bloodless, his thin flat nose had the sardonic
expression which we see in a death's head, and his green eyes were
inscrutable; their glance was discreet in meaning just as the thin
closed mouth was discreet in words. The first man seemed on the whole
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: to hundreds of people who did not want it enough to go after it.
Therefore Katy gave up the shop at once, but she did not abandon
the idea of enlarging her business, though she did not exactly
see how it could be done. One day an accident solved the problem
for her, and at that time commenced a new era in the candy trade.
One pleasant morning in November, as she walked up the court, she
met Ann Grippen, a sister of Johnny who stopped to talk with her.
The Grippen family consisted of eleven persons. The father was a
day laborer, and as his wages were small, and he had a great many
mouths to feed, they were, of course, miserably poor. The older
children showed no ability or disposition to help their parents
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: loveliest spots imaginable. Yesterday evening we had near a score
natives on board; lovely parties. We have a native god; very rare
now. Very rare and equally absurd to view.
This sort of work is not favourable to correspondence: it takes me
all the little strength I have to go about and see, and then come
home and note, the strangeness around us. I shouldn't wonder if
there came trouble here some day, all the same. I could name a
nation that is not beloved in certain islands - and it does not
know it! Strange: like ourselves, perhaps, in India! Love to all
and much to yourself.
R. L. S.
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