| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: the grating was broken down one morning, they knew with a shudder that
they were free. The effect produced by the Revolution upon their
simple souls is easy to imagine; it produced a temporary imbecility
not natural to them. They could not bring the ideas learned in the
convent into harmony with life and its difficulties; they could not
even understand their own position. They were like children whom
mothers have always cared for, deserted by their maternal providence.
And as a child cries, they betook themselves to prayer. Now, in the
presence of imminent danger, they were mute and passive, knowing no
defence save Christian resignation.
The man at the door, taking silence for consent, presented himself,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: ``So the siren sings and the prior leaps to meet her, or
tarantula stings him and be dances! `I am growing mad
too,' thinks Fray Juan Perez, and begins presently to tell
that last week he dreamed of Prester John. The end is
that he and the beggar talk till midnight and the next morning
they talk again, and the prior sends for his friends
Captain Martin Alonzo Pinzon and the physician Garcia
Fernandez. The beggar gains them all!''
``Do you think a beggar can do that?'' I said. ``Only a
giver can do that.''
Pedro Gutierrez turned black eyes upon Juan Lepe, whom
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: Gaudry's jealousy of the widow's lover, and contended that he was
the sole author of the outrage.
The jury by their verdict assigned to the widow the greater share
of responsibility. She was found guilty in the full degree, but
to Gaudry were accorded extenuating circumstances. The widow was
condemned to fifteen years' penal servitude, her accomplice to
five years' imprisonment.
It is dreadful to think how very near the Widow Gras came to
accomplishing successfully her diabolical crime. A little less
percipitancy on her part, and she might have secured the fruits
of her cruelty. Her undoubted powers of fascination, in spite of
 A Book of Remarkable Criminals |