| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: successive evenings, entitled The Rhine Gold (a prologue to the
other three), The Valkyries, Siegfried, and Night Falls On The
Gods; or, in the original German, Das Rheingold, Die Walkure,
Siegfried, and Die Gotterdammerung.
THE RHINE GOLD
Let me assume for a moment that you are a young and good-looking
woman. Try to imagine yourself in that character at Klondyke five
years ago. The place is teeming with gold. If you are content to
leave the gold alone, as the wise leave flowers without plucking
them, enjoying with perfect naivete its color and glitter and
preciousness, no human being will ever be the worse for your
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: however, is not perceived at first; the passions which tend to
sever the citizens of a democracy are obvious enough; but the
hidden force which restrains and unites them is not discernible
at a glance.
Amidst the ruins which surround me, shall I dare to say that
revolutions are not what I most fear coming generations? If men
continue to shut themselves more closely within the narrow circle
of domestic interests and to live upon that kind of excitement,
it is to be apprehended that they may ultimately become
inaccessible to those great and powerful public emotions which
perturb nations - but which enlarge them and recruit them. When
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: "This is worse than the worst," he thought. "But at least nothing
else can happen." But then he heard the sound of wolves coming his
way. The noise was so startling that the man awoke and discovered
that he had been dreaming. "What a dream I had," he said, shaking
himself. "Nothing could be worse."
How Sir Reginald Helped the King
Once upon a time in the kingdom of Plebnia, the king was having a
real problem with his letters to the outlying regions. His messages
always seemed to arrive too late. No matter how early he mailed them,
his Christmas cards arrived in July and his Valentines arrived on
December 24, creating confusion and uncertainty among the people
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