| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: all directed to make ourselves good wives and mothers
as fast as we can? Why, I'll undertake with one flirt
of this hoop to bring more beaux to my feet in one
week than the grave Maria, and her sentimental
circle, can do, by sighing sentiment till their hairs
are grey.
LETITIA
Well, I won't argue with you; you always out-talk
me; let us change the subject. I hear that Mr. Dim-
ple and Maria are soon to be married.
CHARLOTTE
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: do. And while the voices are singing these operas, especially the old
ones, what harm is there if sometimes the priest is thinking of something
else? So there's my confession! And now, whether Trovatore is come or
not, I shall not allow you to leave us until you have taught all you know
of it to Felipe."
The new opera, however, had duly arrived. And as he turned its pages
Padre Ignacio was quick to seize at once upon the music that could be
taken into his church. Some of it was ready fitted. By that afternoon
Felipe and his choir could have rendered "Ah! se l' error t' ingombra"
without slip or falter.
Those were strange rehearsals of Il Trovatore upon this California shore.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: is God's work, impatience is the work of our flesh; this shall
rest and be dead, that we thus in every way keep a spiritual
holiday, let our works stand idle, and let God work in us.
Therefore in order to kill our works and the Adam in us, God
heaps many temptations upon us, which move us to anger, many
sufferings, which rouse us to impatience, and last of all death
and the world's abuse; whereby He seeks nothing else than that
He may drive out anger, impatience and lack of peace, and attain
to His work, that is, to peace, in us. Thus says Isaiah xxviii,
"He does the work of another that He may come to His own work."
What does this mean? He sends us suffering and trouble that He
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