| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: Saturnalian manners and companions that he was shot almost
unconsciously into the grand domestic crash of 1668.
That was the legitimate issue and punishment of years of
staggering walk and conversation. The man who has smoked his
pipe for half a century in a powder magazine finds himself at
last the author and the victim of a hideous disaster. So
with our pleasant-minded Pepys and his peccadilloes. All of
a sudden, as he still trips dexterously enough among the
dangers of a double-faced career, thinking no great evil,
humming to himself the trillo, Fate takes the further conduct
of that matter from his hands, and brings him face to face
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Foolish Virgin by Thomas Dixon: at last to do the tasks of man. But she's doing them,
dear--and it must be so until a brighter day dawns for
humanity. The new world that opens before us will
never abolish marriage, but it has opened our eyes to
know what it means. You refuse to open yours. You
refuse to see this new world about you. I've begged
you to join one of my clubs. You refuse. I beg you to
meet and know such men of genius as Gordon----"
"As an artist's model!"
"It's the only way on earth you can meet him. You
stick to your narrow, hide-bound conventional life and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: DEDICATION
To Monsieur Guyonnet-Merville.
Is it not a necessity to explain to a public curious to know
everything, how I came to be sufficiently learned in the law to
carry on the business of my little world? And in so doing, am I
not bound to put on record the memory of the amiable and
intelligent man who, meeting the Scribe (another clerk-amateur) at
a ball, said, "Just give the office a turn; there is work for you
there, I assure you"? But do you need this public testimony to
feel assured of the affection of the writer?
DE BALZAC.
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