| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: fight singlehanded against their marshalled host? And for what
purpose but to see me overthrown by their mischievous
machinations, and to see me die, alas! the true spiritual and
eternal death? That is the fate which must befall inexperienced
and cowardly monks. But, I beseech thee, pray the Lord to take
me also together with thee from life. Yea, by the very hope that
thou hast of receiving the reward of thy labour, pray that, after
thy departure, I may not live one day more in the world, nor
wander into the ocean depths of this desert."
While Ioasaph spake thus in tears, the old man cheeked him gently
and calmly, saying, "Son, we ought not to resist the judgements
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Extracts From Adam's Diary by Mark Twain: heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound
intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming
solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new
sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my
ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only
to sounds that are more or less distant from me.
Friday
The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I
had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty--
GARDEN-OF-EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not
any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Somebody's Little Girl by Martha Young: points and coves, those points and caves lying below and beyond fold
over fold, everything grew purple and violet.
Everything grew so purple, and so violet, and so great, and so wide
that it seemed sometimes to the little girl, standing on the cliff
by Sister Helen Vincula, that she was looking right down into the
heart of a violet as great, as wide--as great, as wide--as the whole
world.
But this did not seem so strange to Bessie Bell, for she yet
remembered that window out of which one could see just small, green,
moving things, and of which great grown people had told her, ``No,
Bessie Bell, there is no such window in all the world.''
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