| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: ideal and angelic purity in their women, regarded all unmarried
women of their circle as possessed of such purity, and treated
them accordingly. There was much that was false and harmful in
this outlook, as concerning the laxity the men permitted
themselves, but in regard to the women that old-fashioned view
(sharply differing from that held by young people to-day who see
in every girl merely a female seeking a mate) was, I think, of
value. The girls, perceiving such adoration, endeavoured with
more or less success to be goddesses.
Such was the view Kasatsky held of women, and that was how he
regarded his fiancee. He was particularly in love that day, but
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther: reproaches Him with falsehood.
Besides this, we should be incited and drawn to prayer because in
addition to this commandment and promise God anticipates us, and
Himself arranges the words and form of prayer for us, and places them
upon our lips as to how and what we should pray, that we may see how
heartily He pities us in our distress, and may never doubt that such
prayer is pleasing to Him and shall certainly be answered; which [the
Lord's Prayer] is a great advantage indeed over all other prayers that
we might compose ourselves. For in them the conscience would ever be in
doubt and say: I have prayed, but who knows how it pleases Him, or
whether I have hit upon the right proportions and form? Hence there is
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: of scarlet wool, and manufactured those red-knitted caps that you may
have noticed on the heads of all the street urchins in Paris. How this
came about I am just going to tell you. The Republic was beaten. After
the Saint-Merri affair the caps were quite unsalable. Now, when a
weaver finds that besides a wife and children he has some ten thousand
red woolen caps in the house, and that no hatter will take a single
one of them, notions begin to pass through his head as fast as if he
were a banker racking his brains to get rid of ten million francs'
worth of shares in some dubious investment. As for this Law of the
Faubourg, this Nucingen of caps, do you know what he did? He went to
find a pothouse dandy, one of those comic men that drive police
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