| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: when the rest of the world were wearying you with their attentions, am the
last of your lovers who still speaks to you. The cause of my silence has
been that I was hindered by a power more than human, of which I will some
day explain to you the nature; this impediment has now been removed; I
therefore here present myself before you, and I greatly hope that no
similar hindrance will again occur. Meanwhile, I have observed that your
pride has been too much for the pride of your admirers; they were numerous
and high-spirited, but they have all run away, overpowered by your superior
force of character; not one of them remains. And I want you to understand
the reason why you have been too much for them. You think that you have no
need of them or of any other man, for you have great possessions and lack
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: three-quarter profile,--an attitude truly Napoleonic.
"Oh, how funny you are! what have you been eating to-night?"
Gaudissart was thirty-eight years of age, of medium height, stout and
fat like men who roll about continually in stage-coaches, with a face
as round as a pumpkin, ruddy cheeks, and regular features of the type
which sculptors of all lands adopt as a model for statues of
Abundance, Law, Force, Commerce, and the like. His protuberant stomach
swelled forth in the shape of a pear; his legs were small, but active
and vigorous. He caught Jenny up in his arms like a baby and kissed
her.
"Hold your tongue, young woman!" he said. "What do you know about
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: "No, I did not know that."
"The stigma stuck to his name, and finally drove him to take up
this work. I don't think Muller realised, when he began, just
how greatly he is gifted. I don't know that he really knows now.
He seems to do it because he likes it - he's a queer sort of man."
While the commissioners drove through the streets to the police
station the man of whom they were speaking sat in Johann's little
room in close consultation with the valet.
"How long is it since the Professor began to give you money to go
to the theatre on Saturday evenings?"
The first time it happened was on my name day. "What's the rest
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