| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: saw how, beneath the surface, courage was often rashness; and
prudence, cowardice; generosity, a clever piece of calculation;
justice, a wrong; delicacy, pusillanimity; honesty, a modus
vivendi; and by some strange dispensation of fate, he must see
that those who at heart were really honest, scrupulous, just,
generous, prudent, or brave were held cheaply by their fellow-
men.
"What a cold-blooded jest!" said he to himself. "It was not
devised by a God."
From that time forth he renounced a better world, and never
uncovered himself when a Name was pronounced, and for him the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: after another entered the room--"welcome, Abdus; peace be with
you, Rhodaspes and Tigranes, and with you my father, Abgarus.
You are all welcome. This house grows bright with the joy of
your presence."
There were nine of the men, differing widely in age, but
alike in the richness of their dress of many-coloured silks,
and in the massive golden collars around their necks, marking
them as Parthian nobles, and in the winged circles of gold
resting upon their breasts, the sign of the followers of
Zoroaster.
They took their places around a small black altar at the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson: or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness
of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by
before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures. He would be
aware of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the
figure of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running from the
doctor's; and then these met, and that human Juggernaut trod the
child down and passed on regardless of her screams. Or else he
would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep,
dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room
would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the
sleeper recalled, and lo! there would stand by his side a figure
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde |
