| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: friend" of my father's,--my father himself so described him,--and
I recall his memory with deep affection and respect.
At last I have come to the memory of the man who was nearer in
spirit to my father than any other human being, namely,
Nikolái Nikoláyevitch Gay. Grandfather Gay, as we
called him, made my father's acquaintance in 1882. While living
on his farm in the Province of Tchernigoff, he chanced to read my
father's pamphlet "On the Census," and finding a solution in it of
the very questions which were troubling him at the time, without
delay he started out and hurried into Moscow. I remember his first
arrival, and I have always retained the impression that from the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: white teeth and laughed. 'Who is He of whom thou speakest?' he
asked.
'It matters not,' she answered. 'Go thou to-night, and stand under
the branches of the hornbeam, and wait for my coming. If a black
dog run towards thee, strike it with a rod of willow, and it will
go away. If an owl speak to thee, make it no answer. When the
moon is full I shall be with thee, and we will dance together on
the grass.'
'But wilt thou swear to me to tell me how I may send my soul from
me?' he made question.
She moved out into the sunlight, and through her red hair rippled
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: interesting to witness. Mr. Rogers told me that he first introduced
her to Lord Byron. After breakfast he had been repeating some lines
of poetry which he thought fine, when he suddenly exclaimed: "But
there is a bit of American PROSE, which, I think, had more poetry in
it than almost any modern verse." He then repeated, I should think,
more than a page from Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast," describing
the falling overboard of one of the crew, and the effect it
produced, not only at the moment, but for some time afterward. I
wondered at his memory, which enabled him to recite so beautifully a
long prose passage, so much more difficult than verse. Several of
those present with whom the book was a favorite, were so glad to
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