| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: with much acumen, that the author has painted
his own portrait and those of his acquaint-
ances! . . . What a stale and wretched jest!
But Russia, it appears, has been constituted in
such a way that absurdities of this kind will
never be eradicated. It is doubtful whether, in
this country, the most ethereal of fairy-tales
would escape the reproach of attempting offen-
sive personalities.
Pechorin, gentlemen, is in fact a portrait, but
not of one man only: he is a composite portrait,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Summer by Edith Wharton: the outmost verge of things, and she wondered how she
had ever dreamed of going to New York to find him....
As the road mounted the country grew bleaker, and they
drove across fields of faded mountain grass bleached by
long months beneath the snow. In the hollows a few
white birches trembled, or a mountain ash lit its
scarlet clusters; but only a scant growth of pines
darkened the granite ledges. The wind was blowing
fiercely across the open slopes; the horse faced it
with bent head and straining flanks, and now and then
the buggy swayed so that Charity had to clutch its
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: words put into his mouth by the Holy Ghost, by whom the fishermen
enclosed the whole world in their nets for Christ and the
unlearned are found wiser than the wise. This Holy Spirit's
grace and wisdom taught Ioasaph to speak with the king his
father, enlightening him with the light of knowledge. Before now
he had bestowed much labour to drag his father from superstitious
error, leaving nothing unsaid and nothing undone to win him over,
but he seemed to be twanging on a broken string, and speaking to
deaf ears. But when the Lord looked upon the lowliness of his
servant Ioasaph, and, in answer to his prayer, opened the closed
gates of his father's heart (for it is said, he will fulfil the
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