| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: senses sometimes harmonize while ideas are at variance; and some
persons live more by their minds than by their bodies. The contrary is
also true; often minds agree and persons displease. These phenomena,
the varying and secret cause of many sorrows, show the wisdom of laws
which give parents supreme power over the marriages of their children;
for a young girl is often duped by one or other of these
hallucinations. Therefore I do not blame you. The sensations you feel,
the rush of sensibility which has come from its hidden source upon
your heart and upon your mind, the happiness with which you think of
Savinien, are all natural. But, my darling child, society demands, as
our good abbe has told us, the sacrifice of many natural inclinations.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: the quickness of his own nature had induced in Faraday the habit of
requiring an interval of reflection, before he decided upon any
question of importance. In the present instance he followed his
usual habit, and begged for a little time.
On the following morning, I went up to his room and said on entering
that I had come to him with some anxiety of mind. He demanded its
cause, and I responded:--'Lest you should have decided against the
wishes of the deputation that waited on you yesterday.' 'You would
not urge me to undertake this responsibility,' he said. 'I not only
urge you,' was my reply, 'but I consider it your bounden duty to
accept it.' He spoke of the labour that it would involve; urged that
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: "thou wouldst do wrong to heed my enemy and kill me thus." While
she, intent upon his death, admonishes him to cut off his head,
and not to believe a word he says. He strikes: the head flies
across the sward and the body fails. Then the damsel is pleased
and satisfied. Grasping the head by the hair, the knight
presents it to the damsel, who takes it joyfully with the words:
"May thy heart receive such delight from whatever it most desires
as my heart now receives from what I most coveted. I had only
one grief in life, and that was that this man was still alive. I
have a reward laid up for thee which thou shalt receive at the
proper time. I promise thee that thou shalt have a worthy reward
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