| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: Namur, rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient he
should return to England, in order, if possible, to be set to rights.
He was four years totally confined,--part of it to his bed, and all of it
to his room: and in the course of his cure, which was all that time in
hand, suffer'd unspeakable miseries,--owing to a succession of exfoliations
from the os pubis, and the outward edge of that part of the coxendix called
the os illium,--both which bones were dismally crush'd, as much by the
irregularity of the stone, which I told you was broke off the parapet,--as
by its size,--(tho' it was pretty large) which inclined the surgeon all
along to think, that the great injury which it had done my uncle Toby's
groin, was more owing to the gravity of the stone itself, than to the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: him in a spirit comparatively selfish. It was very discouraging:
I almost felt the liberty had been taken with myself.
I had had on my tongue's end, for my own part, a phrase or two
about the right word at the right time; but later on I was glad not
to have spoken, for when on our return we clustered at tea I
perceived Lady Jane, who had not been out with us, brandishing THE
MIDDLE with her longest arm. She had taken it up at her leisure;
she was delighted with what she had found, and I saw that, as a
mistake in a man may often be a felicity in a woman, she would
practically do for me what I hadn't been able to do for myself.
"Some sweet little truths that needed to be spoken," I heard her
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Koran: shall crumble, crumbling, and become like motes
dispersed!
And ye shall be three sorts;
And the fellows of the right hand-what right lucky
fellows!
And the fellows of the left hand-what unlucky fellows!
And the foremost foremost!
These are they who are brought nigh,
In gardens of pleasure!
A crowd of those of yore,
And a few of those of the latter day!
 The Koran |