| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: when one wishes to make a good impression."
"Ah, my dear lady," said Bernard, "you made your impression--
as far as I am concerned--a long time ago, and I doubt whether
it would have gained anything to-day by your having prepared
an effect."
They were standing before the fire-place, on the great hearth-rug,
and Blanche, while she listened to this speech, was feeling,
with uplifted arm, for a curl that had strayed from her chignon.
"She prepares her effects very quickly," said Gordon, laughing gently.
"They follow each other very fast!"
Blanche kept her hand behind her head, which was bent slightly forward;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: they scarcely ever in the least understood.
The more reasonable, who did not go so far back for their models,
aimed merely at adopting the English constitutional system, of
which Montesquieu and Voltaire had sung the praises, and which
all nations were finally to imitate without violent crises.
Their ambitions were confined to a desire to perfect the existing
monarchy, not to overthrow it. But in time of revolution men
often take a very different path from that they propose to take.
At the time of the convocation of the States General no one would
ever have supposed that a revolution of peaceful bourgeoisie
and men of letters would rapidly be transformed into one of the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A treatise on Good Works by Dr. Martin Luther: all your sacrifices and eat your burnt-offerings and your flesh
yourselves; for concerning these things I have commanded you
nothing, but this thing commanded I you: Obey My voice (that is,
not what seems right and good to you, but what I bid you), and
walk in the way that I have commanded you." And Deuteronomy xii:
"Thou shalt not do whatsoever is right in thine own eyes, but
what thy God has commanded thee."
These and numberless like passages of Scripture are spoken to
tear man not only from sins, but also from the works which seem
to men to be good and right, and to turn men, with a single mind,
to the simple meaning of God's commandment only, that they shall
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