| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Whether the horse by him became his deed,
Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.
'But quickly on this side the verdict went;
His real habitude gave life and grace
To appertainings and to ornament,
Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case,:
All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,
Came for additions; yet their purpos'd trim
Pierc'd not his grace, but were all grac'd by him.
'So on the tip of his subduing tongue
All kind of arguments and question deep,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: spotted exceptions of trade than the ringstraked-and-spotted
would multiply and prevail.
But most probably luck had little to do with it. Character
is Fate, said Novalis, and Farfrae's character was just the
reverse of Henchard's, who might not inaptly be described as
Faust has been described--as a vehement gloomy being who had
quitted the ways of vulgar men without light to guide him on
a better way.
Farfrae duly received the request to discontinue attentions
to Elizabeth-Jane. His acts of that kind had been so slight
that the request was almost superfluous. Yet he had felt a
 The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: incomplete? Are there not many stars still beyond our
horizon--lights that are known only to the dwellers in the far
south-land, among the spice-trees of Punt and the gold mines of
Ophir?"
There was a murmur of assent among the listeners.
"The stars," said Tigranes, "are the thoughts of the
Eternal. They are numberless. But the thoughts of man can be
counted, like the years of his life. The wisdom of the Magi
is the greatest of all wisdoms on earth, because it knows its
own ignorance. And that is the secret of power. We keep men
always looking and waiting for a new sunrise. But we
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