The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: leads to the terrible ruin produced by disenchantment, by hopes
and passions betrayed. Thus it was with the young painter. He
went out at a very early hour to walk under the fresh shade of
the Tuileries, absorbed in his thoughts, forgetting everything in
the world.
There by chance he met one of his most intimate friends, a
school-fellow and studio-mate, with whom he had lived on better
terms than with a brother.
"Why, Hippolyte, what ails you?" asked Francois Souchet, the
young sculptor who had just won the first prize, and was soon to
set out for Italy.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: confide in me. There is no sin that may not be blotted out in the
sight of God by penitence as sincere and touching as yours appears to
be."
At the first words the man started with terror, in spite of himself.
Then he recovered composure, and looked quietly at the astonished
priest.
"Father," he said, and the other could not miss the tremor in his
voice, "no one is more guiltless than I of the blood shed----"
"I am bound to believe you," said the priest. He paused a moment, and
again he scrutinized his penitent. But, persisting in the idea that
the man before him was one of the members of the Convention, one of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: attraction of this spot for the Rhine maidens is a lump of the
Rhine gold, which they value, in an entirely uncommercial way,
for its bodily beauty and splendor. Just at present it is
eclipsed, because the sun is not striking down through the
water.
Presently there comes a poor devil of a dwarf stealing along the
slippery rocks of the river bed, a creature with energy enough to
make him strong of body and fierce of passion, but with a brutish
narrowness of intelligence and selfishness of imagination: too
stupid to see that his own welfare can only be compassed as part
of the welfare of the world, too full of brute force not to grab
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