The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: When, in prospect of some good, whether natural or moral, we break
the rules prescribed us, we withdraw from the direction of superior
wisdom, and take all consequences upon ourselves. Man cannot so
far know the connection of causes and events as that he may venture
to do wrong in order to do right. When we pursue our end by lawful
means, we may always console our miscarriage by the hope of future
recompense. When we consult only our own policy, and attempt to
find a nearer way to good by over-leaping the settled boundaries of
right and wrong, we cannot be happy even by success, because we
cannot escape the consciousness of our fault; but if we miscarry,
the disappointment is irremediably embittered. How comfortless is
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: stage.
Next morning, as Lucien and Coralie sat at breakfast, a carriage drove
along the Rue de Vendome. The street was quiet enough, so that they
could hear the light sound made by an elegant cabriolet; and there was
that in the pace of the horse, and the manner of pulling up at the
door, which tells unmistakably of a thoroughbred. Lucien went to the
window, and there, in fact, beheld a splendid English horse, and no
less a person than Dauriat flinging the reins to his man as he stepped
down.
" 'Tis the publisher, Coralie," said Lucien.
"Let him wait, Berenice," Coralie said at once.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: John discoursed upon the Replacers; Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael had quite
evidently expressed to her own circle what she thought of them; and the
town in consequence, although it did not see them or their automobiles,
because it appeared they were gone some twenty miles inland upon an
excursion to a resort where was a large hotel, and a little variety in
the way of some tourists of the Replacer stripe,--the town kept them well
in its mind's eye. The automobiles would have sufficed to bring them into
disrepute, but Kings Port had a better reason in their conduct in the
church; and John found many things to say to me, as we drove along, about
Bohm and Charley and Kitty. Gazza he forgot, although, as shall appear in
its place, Gazza was likely to live a long while in his memory. Beverly
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