| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: the dogged silence with which for days together he meets my arguments,
nor to answer his irrational remarks, his childish reasons. I have no
courage against weakness, any more than I have against childhood; they
may strike me as they will, I cannot resist. Perhaps I might meet
strength with strength, but I am powerless against those I pity. If I
were required to coerce Madeleine in some matter that would save her
life, I should die with her. Pity relaxes all my fibres and unstrings
my nerves. So it is that the violent shocks of the last ten years have
broken me down; my feelings, so often battered, are numb at times;
nothing can revive them; even the courage with which I once faced my
troubles begins to fail me. Yes, sometimes I am beaten. For want of
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: satisfactorily to decide our differences, you and I and all of us quarrel,
when we do quarrel? (Compare Alcib.)
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates, the nature of the differences about which we
quarrel is such as you describe.
SOCRATES: And the quarrels of the gods, noble Euthyphro, when they occur,
are of a like nature?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly they are.
SOCRATES: They have differences of opinion, as you say, about good and
evil, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable: there would have been
no quarrels among them, if there had been no such differences--would there
now?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Bucky O'Connor by William MacLeod Raine: "But certainly."
"Then she is mine," cried Valdez.
"I am not," replied the girl indignantly over her shoulder.
Megales turned her till her unconsenting eyes met his. "Do you
want to marry this young man, Carmencita?"
"I never told him anything of the sort," she flamed.
"I didn't quite ask what you had told him. The question is
whether you love him."
"But no; I love you," she blushed.
"I hope so," smiled her father. "But do you love him? An honest
answer, if you please."
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