| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: destruction to the conclusion that, as Browning's David puts it
(David of all people!), "All's Love; yet all's Law."
Certainly it is clear enough that such love as that implied by
Siegfried's first taste of fear as he cuts through the mailed
coat of the sleeping figure on the mountain, and discovers that
it is a woman; by her fierce revolt against being touched by him
when his terror gives way to ardor; by his manly transports of
victory; and by the womanly mixture of rapture and horror with
which she abandons herself to the passion which has seized on
them both, is an experience which it is much better, like the
vast majority of us, never to have passed through, than to allow
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: cause to hate him. The master's wife would go on a visit
to the country in a few days, and there would be nothing
to interfere with the plan; the master always pre-
pared himself for great occasions by getting pretty well
fuddled, and the sign-painter's boy said that when the
dominie had reached the proper condition on Examina-
tion Evening he would "manage the thing" while he
napped in his chair; then he would have him awakened
at the right time and hurried away to school.
In the fulness of time the interesting occasion ar-
rived. At eight in the evening the schoolhouse was
 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: turns. No amateur gets paid. The idea is ridiculous. However, here's fifty
cents. It will pay your sister's car fare also. And,"--very
suavely,--"speaking for the Loops, permit me to thank you for the kind and
successful contribution of your services."
That afternoon, true to her promise to Max Irwin, she placed her typewritten
copy into his hands. And while he ran over it, he nodded his head from time to
time, and maintained a running fire of commendatory remarks: "Good!--that's
it!--that's the stuff!--psychology's all right!--the very idea!--you've caught
it!--excellent!--missed it a bit here, but it'll go--that's vigorous!
--strong!--vivid!--pictures! pictures!--excellent!--most excellent!"
And when he had run down to the bottom of the last page, holding out his hand:
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