| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: excitement, dear to men as they now are.
But if we turn from the abstract question to the actual
situation, we find that the individual saint may be well or ill
adapted, according to particular circumstances. There is, in
short, no absoluteness in the excellence of sainthood. It must
be confessed that as far as this world goes, anyone who makes an
out-and-out saint of himself does so at his peril. If he is not
a large enough man, he may appear more insignificant and
contemptible, for all his saintship, than if he had remained a
worldling.[223] Accordingly religion has seldom been so
radically taken in our Western world that the devotee could not
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: her warming-pan too for your benefit. I hope that you will find that
luxurious armchair the most comfortable seat you have ever sat in, it
was a discovery of the late cure's; I do not know where he found it,
but it is a fact that if you wish to meet with the perfection of
comfort, beauty, or convenience, you must ask counsel of the Church.
Well, I hope that you will find everything in your room to your
liking. You will find some good razors and excellent soap, and all the
trifling details that make one's own home so pleasant. And if my views
on the subject of hospitality should not at once explain the
difference between your room and mine, to-morrow, M. Bluteau, you will
arrive at a wonderfully clear comprehension of the bareness of my room
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: McLean did not hear. He was musing, his eyes fixed absently in front of
him. "I would not want," he said, with hesitating utterance--"I'd not
wish for even my enemy to have a thing like what I've had to do
to-night."
Barker touched him on the arm. "If there had been another man I could
trust--"
"Trust!" broke in the cow-puncher. "Why, Doc, it is the best turn yu'
ever done me. I know I am a man now--if my nerve ain't gone."
I've known you were a man since I knew you!" said the hearty Governor.
And he helped the still unsteady six-foot to a chair. "As for your nerve,
I'll bring you some whiskey now. And after"--he glanced at the bed--" and
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