| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: "A--hem--nothing of this, eh, Selden? As one of the family, I
know I may count on you--appearances are deceptive--and Fifth
Avenue is so imperfectly lighted---"
"Goodnight," said Selden, turning sharply down the side street
without seeing the other's extended hand.
Alone with her cousin's kiss, Gerty stared upon her thoughts. He
had kissed her before--but not with another woman on his lips. If
he had spared her that she could have drowned quietly, welcoming
the dark flood as it submerged her. But now the flood was shot
through with glory, and it was harder to drown at sunrise than in
darkness. Gerty hid her face from the light, but it pierced to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Merry Men by Robert Louis Stevenson: at that I paused. 'You can guess fine what that is, Mary,' I said.
She looked away from me in silence, and that was small
encouragement, but I was not to be put off. 'All my days I have
thought the world of you,' I continued; 'the time goes on and I
think always the more of you; I could not think to be happy or
hearty in my life without you: you are the apple of my eye.' Still
she looked away, and said never a word; but I thought I saw that
her hands shook. 'Mary,' I cried in fear, 'do ye no like me?'
'O, Charlie man,' she said, 'is this a time to speak of it? Let me
be, a while; let me be the way I am; it'll not be you that loses by
the waiting!'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: have them in remembrance. Hence men, taking occasion from their
gods, wrought all lawlessness, lasciviousness and ungodliness,
polluting earth and air with their horrible deeds.
"But the Egyptians, more fatuous and foolish than they, have
erred worse than any other nation. They were not satisfied with
the idols worshipped by the Chaldeans and Greeks, but further
introduced as gods brute beasts of land and water, and herbs
and trees, and were defiled in all madness and lasciviousness
worse than all people upon earth. From the beginning they
worshipped Isis, which had for her brother and husband that
Osiris which was slain by his brother Typhon. And for this
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