| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: And I'll not let father go alone."
Fatalism being their mother's last argument and always final, the
children gave up. They let her go. More, they prepared for her so
elaborate a wardrobe that the poor soul had had no excuse to
purchase anything abroad. She had gone through Paris looking
straight ahead lest her eyes lead her into the temptation of the
shops. In Vienna she wore her home-town outfit with
determination, vaguely conscious that the women about her had
more style, were different. She priced unsuitable garments
wistfully, and went home to her trunks full of best materials
that would never wear out. The children, knowing her, had bought
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: immediatly throw the book by; if mercurial, he will laugh most heartily at
it;--and if he is of a grave and saturnine cast, he will, at first sight,
absolutely condemn as fanciful and extravagant; and that was in respect to
the choice and imposition of christian names, on which he thought a great
deal more depended than what superficial minds were capable of conceiving.
His opinion, in this matter, was, That there was a strange kind of magick
bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impressed
upon our characters and conduct.
The hero of Cervantes argued not the point with more seriousness,--nor had
he more faith,--or more to say on the powers of necromancy in dishonouring
his deeds,--or on Dulcinea's name, in shedding lustre upon them, than my
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: accomplished his task, and obeyed his glorious mission. The sublime
resignation of Christians was then seen in all its glory. He depicted
martyrs at the burning stake, and almost stripped them of their merit
by stripping them of their sufferings. He showed their inner angel as
dwelling in the heavens, while the outer man was tortured by the
executioner's sword. He described angels dwelling among men, and gave
tokens by which to recognize them.
He next strove to drag from the very depths of man's understanding the
real sense of the word fall, which occurs in every language. He
appealed to the most widely-spread traditions in evidence of this one
true origin, explaining, with much lucidity, the passion all men have
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