| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: widower had mourned the loss of his beloved Juana; and to this
sorrow of age, his son and his numerous household had attributed
the strange habits that he had contracted. He had shut himself up
in the least comfortable wing of his palace, and very seldom left
his apartments; even Don Juan himself must first ask permission
before seeing his father. If this hermit, unbound by vows, came
or went in his palace or in the streets of Ferrara, he walked as
if he were in a dream, wholly engrossed, like a man at strife
with a memory, or a wrestler with some thought.
The young Don Juan might give princely banquets, the palace might
echo with clamorous mirth, horses pawed the ground in the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: KING EDWARD.
Go, get you hence, return unto the town,
And if this kindness hath deserved your love,
Learn then to reverence Edward as your king.--
[Exeunt Citizens.]
Now, might we hear of our affairs abroad,
We would, till gloomy Winter were o'er spent,
Dispose our men in garrison a while.
But who comes here?
[Enter Copland and King David.]
DERBY.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: chasing the phantoms of elegance and excellence, which sported in
the meteors that exhale in the marshes of misfortune. The heart
is often shut by romance against social pleasure; and, fostering
a sickly sensibility, grows callous to the soft touches of humanity.
To part with Darnford was indeed cruel.--It was to feel most
painfully alone; but she rejoiced to think, that she should spare
him the care and perplexity of the suit, and meet him again, all
his own. Marriage, as at present constituted, she considered as
leading to immorality--yet, as the odium of society impedes
usefulness, she wished to avow her affection to Darnford, by becoming
his wife according to established rules; not to be confounded with
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