| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: dear woman - she was Miss Poyle, the vicar's sister, a robust
unmodulated person - had the happy inspiration and the unusual
courage to address herself across it to Vereker, who was opposite,
but not directly, so that when he replied they were both leaning
forward. She enquired, artless body, what he thought of Lady
Jane's "panegyric," which she had read - not connecting it however
with her right-hand neighbour; and while I strained my ear for his
reply I heard him, to my stupefaction, call back gaily, his mouth
full of bread: "Oh, it's all right - the usual twaddle!"
I had caught Vereker's glance as he spoke, but Miss Poyle's
surprise was a fortunate cover for my own. "You mean he doesn't do
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: meannesses, to use the expression employed by his enemies, who
were anxious to diminish his glory, but which it would be more
proper to call apparent contradictions. Envious people and fools,
having no knowledge of the determinations by which superior
spirits are moved, seize at once on superficial inconsistencies,
to formulate an accusation and so to pass sentence on them. If,
subsequently, the proceedings thus attacked are crowned with
success, showing the correlations of the preliminaries and the
results, a few of the vanguard of calumnies always survive. In
our day, for instance, Napoleon was condemned by our
contemporaries when he spread his eagle's wings to alight in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of
justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant
terror to evil doers, while on the desk before him might be seen
sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon
the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples,
popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant
little paper game-cocks. Apparently there had been some appalling
act of justice recently inflicted, for his scholars were all
busily intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them
with one eye kept upon the master; and a kind of buzzing
stillness reigned throughout the schoolroom. It was suddenly
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
