The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Wrecker by Stevenson & Osbourne: the band play in the Princes Street Gardens, inspected the
regalia and the blood of Rizzio, and fell in love with the great
castle on its cliff, the innumerable spires of churches, the
stately buildings, the broad prospects, and those narrow and
crowded lanes of the old town where my ancestors had lived
and died in the days before Columbus.
But there was another curiosity that interested me more deeply
--my grandfather, Alexander Loudon. In his time, the old
gentleman had been a working mason, and had risen from the
ranks more, I think, by shrewdness than by merit. In his
appearance, speech, and manners, he bore broad marks of his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain: that innocent glad converse wandered he far and
farther, still lightly gossiping, and entered into those
other fields we know not of, and was shut away from
mortal sight. And so there was no parting, for in his
fancy I went with him; he knew not but I went with
him, my hand in his -- my young soft hand, not this
withered claw. Ah, yes, to go, and know it not; to
separate and know it not; how could one go peace --
fuller than that? It was his reward for a cruel life
patiently borne."
There was a slight noise from the direction of the
 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: trials? I will not mention the trials of adversity, which are
innumerable. For this is the most dangerous trial of all, when
there is no trial and every thing is and goes well; for then a
man is tempted to forget God, to become too bold and to misuse
the times of prosperity. Yea, here he has ten times more need to
call upon God's Name than when in adversity. Since it is written,
Psalm xci, "A thousand shall fall on the left hand and ten
thousand on the right hand."
So too we see in broad day, in all men's daily experience, that
more heinous sins and vice occur when there is peace, when all
things are cheap and there are good times, than when war,
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