The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous.
On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries,
and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction
of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which
extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal,
and, when they are committed by one's own side and not by the enemy,
meritorious. But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of
people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few
casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague
frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round
the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. In
1984 |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: as if she intended to swear eternal hatred against the whole world;
"another lady in my place would have perhaps answered your question
in bitter coldness. I know not the little arts of my sex.
I care but little for the vanity of those who would chide me,
and am unwilling as well as shamed to be guilty of anything
that would lead you to think 'all is not gold that glitters';
so be not rash in your resolution. It is better to repent now than
to do it in a more solemn hour. Yes, I know what you would say.
I know you have a costly gift for me--the noblest that man can make--
YOUR HEART! you should not offer it to one so unworthy.
Heaven, you know, has allowed my father's house to be made a house
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: within him these virgin memories that grow fairer every time they rise
before him, memories that hold up to him the ideal of perfect bliss?
Such recollections are like children who die in the flower of
childhood, before their parents have known anything of them but their
smiles.
So M. de Nueil came home from Courcelles, the victim of a mood fraught
with desperate resolutions. Even now he felt that Mme. de Beauseant
was one of the conditions of his existence, and that death would be
preferable to life without her. He was still young enough to feel the
tyrannous fascination which fully-developed womanhood exerts over
immature and impassioned natures; and, consequently, he was to spend
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