| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: of strolling actors, engaged in the arduous task of interpreting
Shakespeare to French and German, Polish and Hungarian audiences.
While this periodical recital was going on, Gertrude lived
in a fantastic world; she seemed to herself to be reading
a romance that came out in daily numbers. She had known nothing
so delightful since the perusal of "Nicholas Nickleby."
One afternoon she went to see her cousin, Mrs. Acton,
Robert's mother, who was a great invalid, never leaving the house.
She came back alone, on foot, across the fields--this being
a short way which they often used. Felix had gone to Boston
with her father, who desired to take the young man to call upon
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: practically proving that his house could be splendidly kept for three
thousand francs a year. Then he put his wife on an allowance of a
hundred francs a month, and boasted of his liberality in so doing. The
office-boy, who liked flowers, was made to take care of the garden on
Sundays. Having dismissed the gardener, Graslin used the greenhouse to
store articles conveyed to him as security for loans. He let the birds
in the aviary die for want of care, to avoid the cost of their food
and attendance. And he even took advantage of a winter when there was
no ice, to give up his icehouse and save the expense of filling it.
By 1828 there was not a single article of luxury in the house which he
had not in some way got rid of. Parsimony reigned unchecked in the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain: whose beams can produce no fruit, whose solar light is not its own,
but borrowed from the great dispenser of effulgent beauty.
We have no disposition in the world to flatter the fair sex,
we would raise them above those dastardly principles which only
exist in little souls, contracted hearts, and a distracted brain.
Often does she unfold herself in all her fascinating loveliness,
presenting the most captivating charms; yet we find man frequently
treats such purity of purpose with indifference. Why does he do it?
Why does he baffle that which is inevitably the source of his
better days? Is he so much of a stranger to those excellent qualities
as not to appreciate woman, as not to have respect to her dignity?
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