| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: is to make me hate you."
"You love us not!" cried Piombo.
"Oh!" said Ginevra, shaking her head.
"Well, then, forget him; be faithful to us. After we are gone--you
understand?"
"Father, do you wish me to long for your death?" cried Ginevra.
"I shall outlive you. Children who do not honor their parents die
early," said the father, driven to exasperation.
"All the more reason why I should marry and be happy," she replied.
This coolness and power of argument increased Piombo's trouble; the
blood rushed violently to his head, and his face turned purple.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: but thought that he was some one else, would you venture to slay him?
ALCIBIADES: Most decidedly not (it seems to me). (These words are omitted
in several MSS.)
SOCRATES: For you designed to kill, not the first who offered, but
Pericles himself?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And if you made many attempts, and each time failed to recognize
Pericles, you would never attack him?
ALCIBIADES: Never.
SOCRATES: Well, but if Orestes in like manner had not known his mother, do
you think that he would ever have laid hands upon her?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: "Is that your daughter, signore?"
Perez de Lagounia (such was the merchant's name) had large commercial
relations with Genoa, Florence, and Livorno; he knew Italian, and
replied in the same language:--
"No; if she were my daughter I should take less precautions. The child
is confided to our care, and I would rather die than see any evil
happen to her. But how is it possible to put sense into a girl of
eighteen?"
"She is very handsome," said Montefiore, coldly, not looking at her
face again.
"Her mother's beauty is celebrated," replied the merchant, briefly.
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