| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: hardest duties of motherhood were fulfilled cheerfully and without
consciousness of merit. What hearts were these that lay so deeply
buried in neglect and obscurity! What wealth, and what poverty!
Soldiers, better than other men, can appreciate the element of
grandeur to be found in heroism in sabots, in the Evangel clad in
rags. The Book may be found elsewhere, adorned, embellished, tricked
out in silk and satin and brocade, but here, of a surety, dwelt the
spirit of the Book. It was impossible to doubt that Heaven had some
holy purpose underlying it all, at the sight of the woman who had
taken a mother's lot upon herself, as Jesus Christ had taken the form
of a man, who gleaned and suffered and ran into debt for her little
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: How should I know what dawn may gleam beyond
the gates of darkness there?--
Which god of all the gods men dream? Why
should I whip myself to care?
Whichever over all hath place hath shaped and
made me what I am;
Hath made me strong to front his face, to dare
to question though he damn.
Perhaps to cringe and cower and bring a shrine
a forced and faithless faith
Is far more futile than to fling your laughter in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Enoch Arden, &c. by Alfred Tennyson: Our Boanerges with his threats of doom,
And loud-lung'd Antibabylonianisms
(Altho' I grant but little music there)
Went both to make your dream: but if there were
A music harmonizing our wild cries,
Sphere-music such as that you dream'd about,
Why, that would make our passions far too like
The discords dear to the musician. No--
One shriek of hate would jar all the hymns of heaven:
True Devils with no ear, they howl in tune
With nothing but the Devil!'
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