The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: unpleasantly overthrown that evening; the extent of the ruin was still
undetermined; he had lost his temper, a physical disaster not to be
matched for the space of ten years or so; and his own condition
urgently required soothing and renovating at the hands of the
classics. His house was in a state of revolution; he had a vision of
unpleasant encounters on the staircase; his meals would be poisoned
for days to come; was literature itself a specific against such
disagreeables? A note of hollowness was in his voice as he read.
CHAPTER XXXIII
Considering that Mr. Hilbery lived in a house which was accurately
numbered in order with its fellows, and that he filled up forms, paid
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: attractive out walking--is a slave at home; she is never independent
but in perfect privacy, or theoretically. She must preserve herself in
her position as a lady. This is her task.
"For in our day a woman repudiated by her husband, reduced to a meagre
allowance, with no carriage, no luxury, no opera-box, none of the
divine accessories of the toilet, is no longer a wife, a maid, or a
townswoman; she is adrift, and becomes a chattel. The Carmelites will
not receive a married woman; it would be bigamy. Would her lover still
have anything to say to her? That is the question. Thus your perfect
lady may perhaps give occasion to calumny, never to slander."
"It is all so horribly true," said the Princesse de Cadignan.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: justified, set free, saved, and made a Christian, by means of any
good work, he would immediately lose faith, with all its
benefits. Such folly is prettily represented in the fable where a
dog, running along in the water and carrying in his mouth a real
piece of meat, is deceived by the reflection of the meat in the
water, and, in trying with open mouth to seize it, loses the meat
and its image at the same time.
Here you will ask, "If all who are in the Church are priests, by
what character are those whom we now call priests to be
distinguished from the laity?" I reply, By the use of these
words, "priest," "clergy," " spiritual person," "ecclesiastic,"
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