The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: sometimes he has worked there for ages. There is no hope that
it will ever end. Think that God put into this man's soul a
fierce thirst for beauty,--to know it, to create it; to
be--something, he knows not what,--other than he is. There are
moments when a passing cloud, the sun glinting on the purple
thistles, a kindly smile, a child's face, will rouse him to a
passion of pain,--when his nature starts up with a mad cry of
rage against God, man, whoever it is that has forced this vile,
slimy life upon him. With all this groping, this mad desire, a
great blind intellect stumbling through wrong, a loving poet's
heart, the man was by habit only a coarse, vulgar laborer,
Life in the Iron-Mills |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: as they left the dinner table.
"Not yet," he answered, "but he is at his last gasp."
The medical student took this for a joke, but it was not a jest.
Eugene had dined in the house that night for the first time for a
long while, and had looked thoughtful during the meal. He had
taken his place beside Mlle. Taillefer, and stayed through the
dessert, giving his neighbor an expressive glance from time to
time. A few of the boarders discussed the walnuts at the table,
and others walked about the room, still taking part in the
conversation which had begun among them. People usually went when
they chose; the amount of time that they lingered being
Father Goriot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Augsburg Confession by Philip Melanchthon: military provision; and then also concerning dissensions in the
matter of our holy religion and Christian Faith, that in this
matter of religion the opinions and judgments of the parties
might be heard in each other's presence; and considered and
weighed among ourselves in mutual charity, leniency, and
kindness, in order that, after the removal and correction of such
things as have been treated and understood in a different manner
in the writings on either side, these matters may be settled and
brought back to one simple truth and Christian concord, that for
the future one pure and true religion may be embraced and
maintained by us, that as we all are under one Christ and do
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