| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: was murmuring to herself:
"Ah! miserable wretch that I am! Have I not suffered enough to expiate
the sins of my youth? Ah! wretched woman, why did you leave the gay
life of a frivolous Frenchwoman? why did you devour the goods of God
with churchmen, the substance of the poor with extortioners and
fleecers of the poor? Oh! I have sinned indeed!--Oh my God! my God!
let me finish my time in hell here in this world of misery."
And again she cried, "Holy Virgin, Mother of God, have pity upon me!"
"Be comforted, mother. God is not a Lombard usurer. I may have killed
people good and bad at random in my time, but I am not afraid of the
resurrection."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: of his childhood.
When Alexander awoke in the morning,
the sun was just rising through pale golden
ripples of cloud, and the fresh yellow light
was vibrating through the pine woods.
The white birches, with their little
unfolding leaves, gleamed in the lowlands,
and the marsh meadows were already coming to life
with their first green, a thin, bright color
which had run over them like fire. As the
train rushed along the trestles, thousands of
Alexander's Bridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: the connexion as warmly as your uncle or myself.
We had a long talk about it. I should not have mentioned
the subject, though very anxious to know her sentiments;
but I had not been in the room five minutes before she
began introducing it with all that openness of heart,
and sweet peculiarity of manner, that spirit and ingenuousness
which are so much a part of herself. Mrs. Grant laughed
at her for her rapidity."
"Was Mrs. Grant in the room, then?"
"Yes, when I reached the house I found the two sisters
together by themselves; and when once we had begun,
Mansfield Park |
