| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: love is the only accomplice in my disaster. I have felt, as my
ruin progressed, the delirious joys of a gambler; as the money
diminished, so my enjoyment grew. Each fragment of my fortune
turned into some little pleasure for you gave me untold happiness.
I could have wished that you had more caprices that I might
gratify them all. I knew I was marching to a precipice, but I went
on crowned with joys of which a common heart knows nothing. I have
acted like those lovers who take refuge in a cottage on the shores
of some lake for a year or two, resolved to kill themselves at
last; dying thus in all the glory of their illusions and their
love. I have always thought such persons infinitely sensible.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: not of that opinion. But I can tell you another thing which perhaps
you knew not. The heart that is blest with the glories of heaven
ceaseth not to remember and to love the beauties of this world. And
of this love I am certain, because I feel it, and glad because it is
a great blessing.
"There are two sorts of seeds sown in our remembrance by what we
call the hand of fortune, the fruits of which do not wither, but
grow sweeter forever and ever. The first is the seed of innocent
pleasures, received in gratitude and enjoyed with good companions,
of which pleasures we never grow weary of thinking, because they
have enriched our hearts. The second is the seed of pure and gentle
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: vice versa. How he performed the above trick I was not
able to discover. He seemed to put them through the tear
duct, but whether he did or not I cannot say. How he got
them from his mouth to his eyes unless he had punctured a
passage beneath the skin, is still to me a mystery.
His last trick was to swallow a sword fifteen inches long.
The sword was straight with a round point and dull edges.
There was no deception about this. He was an old man
and his front, upper teeth were badly worn away by the
constant rasping of the not over-smooth sword. He simply
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