| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: She gave one of her rare flickers of impatience. "It was a
surprise, an emotion. Don't be so literal. I wash my hands of her."
Poor Strether's face lengthened. "She's impossible--?"
"She's even more charming than I remembered her."
"Then what's the matter?"
She had to think how to put it. "Well, I'M impossible. It's
impossible. Everything's impossible."
He looked at her an instant. "I see where you're coming out.
Everything's possible." Their eyes had on it in fact an exchange of
some duration; after which he pursued: "Isn't it that beautiful
child?" Then as she still said nothing: "Why don't you mean to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: coscinomancy, and all the other mancies--there was then a whole
literature about them. And the witch-burning inquisitors like
Sprenger, Bodin, Delrio, and the rest, believed as firmly in the
magic powers of the poor wretches whom they tortured to death, as
did, in many cases, the poor wretches themselves.
Everyone, almost, believed in magic. Take two cases. Read the
story which Benvenuto Cellini, the sculptor, tells in his life
(everyone should read it) of the magician whom he consults in the
Coliseum at Rome, and the figure which he sees as he walks back with
the magician, jumping from roof to roof along the tiles of the
houses.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: door, and finds that it is broad moonlight]. What a beautiful
night! Look! [She draws the curtains of the window. The
landscape is seen bathed in the radiance of the harvest moon
rising over Blackdown].
MRS WARREN [with a perfunctory glance at the scene] Yes, dear;
but take care you dont catch your death of cold from the night
air.
VIVIE [contemptuously] Nonsense.
MRS WARREN [querulously] Oh yes: everything I say is nonsense,
according to you.
VIVIE [turning to her quickly] No: really that is not so, mother.
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