| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: us the loss of our own souls--WOULD, indeed, if we died without
time to repent."
"Strange . . . strange . . . it is past belief." Then he
asked, roughly: "Is such a soul as that WORTH saving?"
He rose up, mumbling and grumbling, and started for the door,
stumping vigorously along. At the threshold he turned and rasped
out an admonition: "Reform! Drop this mean and sordid and selfish
devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt up
something to do that's got some dignity to it! RISK your souls! risk
them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you care? Reform!"
The good old gentlewomen sat paralyzed, pulverized, outraged, insulted,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: " 'Alas! with you I can never play the coquette. I am like a
mother with her child; I endure anything from you; I, that was
once so imperious and proud. I have made dukes and princes fetch
and carry for me; aides-de-camp, worth more than all the court of
Charles X. put together, have done my errands, yet I am treating
you as my spoilt child. But where is the use of coquetry? It would
be pure waste. And yet, monsieur, for want of coquetry I shall
never inspire love in you. I know it; I feel it; yet I do as
before, feeling a power that I cannot withstand, thinking that
this utter self-surrender will win me the sentiment innate in all
men (so /he/ tells me) for the thing that belongs to them.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: tion the young woman quickly drew a revolver
from under her cloak and aiming it at the min-
ister's chest fired--but missed him.
The minister rushed at her, trying to seize her
hand, but she escaped, and taking a step back, fired
a second time. The minister ran out of the room.
The woman was immediately seized. She was
trembling violently, and could not utter a single
word; after a while she suddenly burst into a hys-
terical laugh. The minister was not even wounded.
That woman was Katia Turchaninova. She
The Forged Coupon |
