| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: There was in this insistence and, still more, in the frenzied
manner of it, something so unreasonable that Andre could not fail
to assume that some dark and mysterious motive lay behind it.
"I must?" he echoed. "Why must I? Your reasons,monsieur?"
"Andre, my reasons are overwhelming."
"Pray allow me to be the judge of that." Andre-Louis' manner was
almost peremptory.
The demand seemed to reduce M. de Kercadiou to despair. He paced
the room, his hands tight-clasped behind him, his brow wrinkled.
At last he came to stand before his godson.
"Can't you take my word for it that these reasons exist?" he cried
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: were as many Madame Firmianis as there are species in society, or
sects in Catholicism. Frightful reflection! we are all like
lithographic blocks, from which an indefinite number of copies can be
drawn by criticism,--the proofs being more or less like us according
to a distribution of shading which is so nearly imperceptible that our
reputation depends (barring the calumnies of friends and the
witticisms of newspapers) on the balance struck by our criticisers
between Truth that limps and Falsehood to which Parisian wit gives
wings.
Madame Firmiani, like other noble and dignified women who make their
hearts a sanctuary and disdain the world, was liable, therefore, to be
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tanach: Amos 6: 11 For, behold, the LORD commandeth, and the great house shall be smitten into splinters, and the little house into chips.
Amos 6: 12 Do horses run upon the rocks? Doth one plow there with oxen? that ye have turned justice into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood;
Amos 6: 13 Ye that rejoice in a thing of nought, that say: 'Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?'
Amos 6: 14 For, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the LORD, the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entrance of Hamath unto the Brook of the Arabah.
Amos 7: 1 Thus the Lord GOD showed me; and, behold, He formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.
Amos 7: 2 And if it had come to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land--so I said: O Lord GOD, forgive, I beseech Thee; how shall Jacob stand? for he is small.
Amos 7: 3 The LORD repented concerning this; 'It shall not be', saith the LORD.
Amos 7: 4 Thus the Lord GOD showed me; and, behold, the Lord GOD called to contend by fire; and it devoured the great deep, and would have eaten up the land.
Amos 7: 5 Then said I: O Lord GOD, cease, I beseech Thee; how shall Jacob stand? for he is small.
Amos 7: 6 The LORD repented concerning this; 'This also shall not be', saith the Lord GOD.
The Tanach |
