| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: Amongst friends his warmest greeting was reserved, not for the most
powerful, but for the most ardent; and if he hated, it was not him
who, being evil entreated, retaliated, but one who, having had
kindness done to him, seemed incapable of gratitude.
He rejoiced when sordid greed was rewarded with poverty; and still
more if he might himself enrich a righteous man, since his wish was to
render uprightness more profitable than iniquity.
He made it a practice to associate with all kinds of people, but to be
intimate only with the best.
As he listened to the praise of this man, or the censure of another,
he felt that he learnt quite as much about the character of the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: The boat, guided by the well-nigh miraculous skill of the steersman,
came almost within sight of Ostend, when, not fifty paces from the
shore, she was suddenly struck by a heavy sea and capsized. The
stranger with the light about his head spoke to this little world of
drowning creatures:
"Those who have faith shall be saved; let them follow me!"
He stood upright, and walked with a firm step upon the waves. The
young mother at once took her child in her arms, and followed at his
side across the sea. The soldier too sprang up, saying in his homely
fashion, "Ah! /nom d'un pipe/! I would follow /you/ to the devil;" and
without seeming astonished by it, he walked on the water. The worn-out
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: threat.
The words of the count echoed in the bosom of the young wife, then
pregnant; one of those presentiments which furrow a track like
lightning through the soul, told her that her child would be born at
seven months. An inward heat overflowed her from head to foot, sending
the life's blood to her heart with such violence that the surface of
her body felt bathed in ice. From that hour not a day had passed that
the sense of secret terror did not check every impulse of her innocent
gaiety. The memory of the look, of the inflections of voice with which
the count accompanied his words, still froze her blood, and silenced
her sufferings, as she leaned over that sleeping head, and strove to
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