| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: gentleman with a lady on his arm. It was from him, from Paul
Creston, the voice had proceeded: he was talking with the lady of
some precious object in the window. Stransom had no sooner
recognised him than the old woman turned away; but just with this
growth of opportunity came a felt strangeness that stayed him in
the very act of laying his hand on his friend's arm. It lasted but
the instant, only that space sufficed for the flash of a wild
question. Was NOT Mrs. Creston dead? - the ambiguity met him there
in the short drop of her husband's voice, the drop conjugal, if it
ever was, and in the way the two figures leaned to each other.
Creston, making a step to look at something else, came nearer,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The School For Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan: a character's dead at every word, I suppose.
MRS. CANDOUR. I am rejoiced you are come, Sir Peter--they have been
so censorious and Lady Teazle as bad as any one.
SIR PETER. That must be very distressing to you, Mrs. Candour I dare
swear.
MRS. CANDOUR. O they will allow good Qualities to nobody--not even
good nature to our Friend Mrs. Pursy.
LADY TEAZLE. What, the fat dowager who was at Mrs. Codrille's
[Quadrille's] last Night?
LADY SNEERWELL. Nay--her bulk is her misfortune and when she takes
such Pains to get rid of it you ought not to reflect on her.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: "commerce" presented no idea whatever to his mind; "public employment"
said almost as little, for he saw no results of it. He listened,
therefore, with a submissive air, which he tried to make humble, to
his mother's exhortations, but they were lost in the void, and did not
reach his mind. Nevertheless, the word "army," the thought of being a
soldier, and the sight of his mother's tears did at last make him cry.
No sooner did Madame Clapart see the drops coursing down his cheeks
than she felt herself helpless, and, like most mothers in such cases,
she began the peroration which terminates these scenes,--scenes in
which they suffer their own anguish and that of their children also.
"Well, Oscar, PROMISE me that you will be more discreet in future,--
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