| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: steadfastly, he believed he had glimpses of a beloved image. At this
last gate of Hell, as at the first, I saw the stamp of despair even in
hope. The hapless creature was so fearfully held by some unseen force,
that his anguish entered into my bones and froze my blood. I shrank
closer to my Guide, whose protection restored me to peace and silence.
"Suddenly the Shade gave a cry of joy--a cry as shrill as that of the
mother bird that sees a hawk in the air, or suspects its presence. We
looked where he was looking, and saw, as it were, a sapphire, floating
high up in the abysses of light. The glowing star fell with the
swiftness of a sunbeam when it flashes over the horizon in the morning
and its first rays shoot across the world. The Splendor became clearer
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: did not refuse to let it be said that he was the son of Caius
Caesar, Tiberius's successor; who, it is told, was well
acquainted with his mother in his early youth, a woman indeed
handsome enough, the off-spring of Callistus, one of Caesar's
freedmen, and a certain seamstress. But it is plain that
Caius's familiarity with his mother was of too late date to give
him any pretensions, and it was suspected he might, if he
pleased, claim a father in Martianus, the gladiator, whom his
mother, Nymphidia, took a passion for, being a famous man in his
way, whom also he much more resembled. However, though he
certainly owned Nymphidia for his mother, he ascribed meantime
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: If once they think, to make them do, the deed.
XXIII
He counselled him how best to hunt his game,
What dart to cast, what net, what toil to pitch,
A niece he had, a nice and tender dame,
Peerless in wit, in nature's blessings rich,
To all deceit she could her beauty frame,
False, fair and young, a virgin and a witch;
To her he told the sum of this emprise,
And praised her thus, for she was fair and wise:
XXIV
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