| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: gave him the few square feet of earth on which he could still most
live. It was as if, being nothing anywhere else for any one,
nothing even for himself, he were just everything here, and if not
for a crowd of witnesses or indeed for any witness but John
Marcher, then by clear right of the register that he could scan
like an open page. The open page was the tomb of his friend, and
there were the facts of the past, there the truth of his life,
there the backward reaches in which he could lose himself. He did
this from time to time with such effect that he seemed to wander
through the old years with his hand in the arm of a companion who
was, in the most extraordinary manner, his other, his younger self;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: one day and one hour exactly like another, except that the latter
is still more tedious than the former. Let your experience inform
me how the day may now seem as short as in my childhood, while
nature was yet fresh, and every moment showed me what I never had
observed before. I have already enjoyed too much: give me
something to desire." The old man was surprised at this new
species of affliction, and knew not what to reply, yet was
unwilling to be silent. "Sir," said he, "if you had seen the
miseries of the world, you would know how to value your present
state." "Now," said the Prince, "you have given me something to
desire. I shall long to see the miseries of the world, since the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Open Letter on Translating by Dr. Martin Luther: So that this curse of the Lord and the entire Church might be
avoided, I must publish this letter which came into my possession
through a good friend. I could not withhold it, as there has been
much discussion about the translating of the Old and New
Testaments. It has been charged by the despisers of truth that
the text has been modified and even falsified in many places,
which has shocked and startled many simple Christians, even among
the educated who do not know any Hebrew or Greek. It is devoutly
hoped that with this publication the slander of the godless will
be stopped and the scruples of the devout removed, at least in
part. It may even give rise to more writing on such matters and
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