| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Memories and Portraits by Robert Louis Stevenson: Christian as he hoped, and a Christian of so old a standing, should
hear these young fellows talking of his own subject, his own
weapons that he had fought the battle of life with, - "and - h'm -
not understand." In this wise and graceful attitude he did justice
to himself and others, reposed unshaken in his old beliefs, and
recognised their limits without anger or alarm. His last recorded
remark, on the last night of his life, was after he had been
arguing against Calvinism with his minister and was interrupted by
an intolerable pang. "After all," he said, "of all the 'isms, I
know none so bad as rheumatism." My own last sight of him was some
time before, when we dined together at an inn; he had been on
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: My father knew, but said nothing. One day when he was going
out for a walk I asked if I might go with him. As I very seldom
went for walks with him in Moscow, he guessed that I wanted to have
a serious talk with him about something, and after walking some
distance in silence, evidently feeling that I was shy about it and
did not like to break the ice, he suddenly began:
"You seem to go pretty often to the F----s'."
I said that I was very fond of the eldest daughter.
"Oh, do you want to marry her?"
"Yes."
"Is she a good girl? Well, mind you don't make a mistake, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: corrected. No attempt was made to controvert the opinion of an
ignorant critic: his veracity only was impugned. The powers of
vaticination possessed by such judges of drama can be fairly tested
in the career of Salome on the European stage, apart from the opera.
In an introduction to the English translation published by Mr. John
Lane it is pointed out that Wilde's confusion of Herod Antipas
(Matt. xiv. 1) with Herod the Great (Matt. ii. 1) and Herod Agrippa
I. (Acts xii. 23) is intentional, and follows a mediaeval
convention. There is no attempt at historical accuracy or
archaeological exactness. Those who saw the marvellous decor of Mr.
Charles Ricketts at the second English production can form a
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