| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: repeated with all his soul: 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have
mercy upon me!'
But he had heard everything. He had heard how the silk rustled
when she took off her dress, how she stepped with bare feet on
the floor, and had heard how she rubbed her feet with her hand.
He felt his own weakness, and that he might be lost at any
moment. That was why he prayed unceasingly. He felt rather as
the hero in the fairy-tale must have felt when he had to go on
and on without looking round. So Sergius heard and felt that
danger and destruction were there, hovering above and around him,
and that he could only save himself by not looking in that
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris:
"SIR:--I have perused with entire satisfaction your personal in
'The Times.' I should like to know more of you. I read between
the lines, and my perception ineradicably convinces me that you
are honest and respectable. I do not believe I should compromise
my self-esteem at all in granting you an interview. I shall be at
Luna's restaurant at seven precisely, next Monday eve, and will
bear a bunch of white marguerites. Will you likewise, and wear a
marguerite in your lapel?
"Trusting this will find you in health, I am
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
"I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel,
Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.
You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles' heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
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