| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: reckless, resolute merriment in the jovial face of the friar,--
and the cheerful, elastic spirits that played on the lips
and sparkled in the eyes of Matilda,--would have presented
a very amusing combination to Sir Ralph, if one of the three
images in the group had not absorbed his total attention
with feelings of intense delight very nearly allied to pain.
The baron's wrath was somewhat counteracted by the reflection
that his daughter's good spirits seemed to show that they
would naturally rise triumphant over all disappointments;
and he had had sufficient experience of her humour to know
that she might sometimes be led, but never could be driven.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: It was a rather slender argument, but the farmers did not seem to detect it.
It looked reasonable to them that to add five cents freight on a bushel
of corn was justifiable under the circumstances, overlooking the fact
that this advance on a cargo of forty thousand sacks was a good deal
more than necessary to cover the new wages.
So, straightway the captains and owners got up an association
of their own, and proposed to put captains' wages up to five
hundred dollars, too, and move for another advance in freights.
It was a novel idea, but of course an effect which had been
produced once could be produced again. The new association decreed
(for this was before all the outsiders had been taken
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso: That had her eyes disposed their looks to play,
The king had snared been in love's strong lace;
But wayward beauty doth not fancy move,
A frown forbids, a smile engendereth love.
XXI
It was amazement, wonder and delight,
Although not love, that moved his cruel sense;
"Tell on," quoth he, "unfold the chance aright,
Thy people's lives I grant for recompense."
Then she, "Behold the faulter here in sight,
This hand committed that supposed offence,
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