| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: should believe that the episode was rather her fault than
her misfortune. She decided to employ persuasion--not with
Donald but with the enemy himself. It seemed the only
practicable weapon left her as a woman. Having laid her
plan she rose, and wrote to him who kept her on these
tenterhooks:--
"I overheard your interview with my husband last night, and
saw the drift of your revenge. The very thought of it
crushes me! Have pity on a distressed woman! If you could
see me you would relent. You do not know how anxiety has
told upon me lately. I will be at the Ring at the time you
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: blind magpie?"
"My dear mother, you judge superior people too severely. If their
ideas were the same as other folks', they would not be men of genius."
"Very well, then let men of genius stop at home and not get married.
What! A man of genius is to make his wife miserable? And because he is
a genius it is all right! Genius, genius! It is not so very clever to
say black one minute and white the next, as he does, to interrupt
other people, to dance such rigs at home, never to let you know which
foot you are to stand on, to compel his wife never to be amused unless
my lord is in gay spirits, and to be dull when he is dull."
"But, mother, the very nature of such imaginations----"
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: little of the Catholic religion except that "Papists" believed in
it--in itself a sufficient indictment. Her spiritual rebellion had
not freed her from the formal part of her religious belief, and
apostasy had always seemed to her one of the sins from which the
pure in mind avert their thoughts.
"And then when the baby was born," Evelina continued, "he
christened it right away, so it could go to heaven; and after that,
you see, I had to be a Catholic."
"I don't see--"
"Don't I have to be where the baby is? I couldn't ever ha'
gone there if I hadn't been made a Catholic. Don't you understand
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