| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: saw. She knew too well what he couldn't read and what she couldn't
write, and she taught him to cultivate indifference with a success
that did much for their good relations. Her invisible industry was
a convenience to him; it helped his contented thought of her, the
thought that rested in the dignity of her proud obscure life, her
little remunerated art and her little impenetrable home. Lost,
with her decayed relative, in her dim suburban world, she came to
the surface for him in distant places. She was really the
priestess of his altar, and whenever he quitted England he
committed it to her keeping. She proved to him afresh that women
have more of the spirit of religion than men; he felt his fidelity
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: plagued and persecuted all my days for other folks' affairs, and have
no manner of pleasure myself. I got meals and a bed to sleep in when
my concerns would suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to
me. If I was to hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not to
hang but to escape out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me
ere I was done with them. Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory,
the way I had first seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness
came in my bosom and strength into my legs; and I set resolutely
forward on the way to Dean. If I was to hang to-morrow, and it was
sure enough I might very likely sleep that night in a dungeon, I
determined I should hear and speak once more with Catriona.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: letter.
"Ha! I've caught you!" cried the old woman, rushing to the window,
from which she saw Jacques running at full speed. "Give me that
letter."
"No, cousin," said Pierrette, who, by one of those strong inspirations
of youth sustained by her own soul, rose to a grandeur of resistance
such as we admire in the history of certain peoples reduced to
despair.
"Ha! you will not?" cried Sylvie, advancing upon the girl with a face
full of hatred and fury.
Pierrette fell back to get time to put her letter in her hand, which
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