| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: partly, because they are afraid of offending you, and also, their judgment
is weakened by passion. Such are the feats which love exhibits; he makes
things painful to the disappointed which give no pain to others; he compels
the successful lover to praise what ought not to give him pleasure, and
therefore the beloved is to be pitied rather than envied. But if you
listen to me, in the first place, I, in my intercourse with you, shall not
merely regard present enjoyment, but also future advantage, being not
mastered by love, but my own master; nor for small causes taking violent
dislikes, but even when the cause is great, slowly laying up little wrath--
unintentional offences I shall forgive, and intentional ones I shall try to
prevent; and these are the marks of a friendship which will last.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: hard-voiced, freckled, rational-minded creature, with large
expository hands, who had come by a side way into the church
because he was an indefatigable worker, and he insisted upon
telling the bishop with an irrepressible candour and completeness
just exactly what was the matter with his intimate life. The
bishop very earnestly did not want these details, and did his
utmost to avoid the controversial questions that the honest man
pressed respectfully but obstinately upon him.
"Even St. Paul, my lord, admitted that it is better to marry
than burn," said the Pringle misdemeanant, "and here was I, my
lord, married and still burning!" and, "I think you would find,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: emotion--particularly perhaps those of gratitude and of resentment.
No one, I think, paid the tribute of giving him up so often, and if
it's rendering honour to borrow wisdom I've a right to talk of my
sacrifices. He yielded lessons as the sea yields fish--I lived for
a while on this diet. Sometimes it almost appeared to me that his
massive monstrous failure--if failure after all it was--had been
designed for my private recreation. He fairly pampered my
curiosity; but the history of that experience would take me too
far. This is not the large canvas I just now spoke of, and I
wouldn't have approached him with my present hand had it been a
question of all the features. Frank Saltram's features, for
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