| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: the retired custom-house official; but before the third month was out
he had good reason to believe that his suspicions were groundless. He
exerted his ingenuity to scrape an acquaintance with Denisart, came up
with him in the street, and at length seized his opportunity to
remark, 'It is a fine day, sir!'
"Whereupon the retired official responded with, 'Austerlitz weather,
sir. I was there myself--I was wounded indeed, I won my Cross on that
glorious day.'
"And so from one thing to another the two drifted wrecks of the Empire
struck up an acquaintance. Little Croizeau was attached to the Empire
through his connection with Napoleon's sisters. He had been their
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution
to give her rest. She was very much affected by the view of
his disposition towards her, which all these things made apparent.
This little circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before.
She understood him. He could not forgive her, but he could not
be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it
with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her,
and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer,
without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder
of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged
friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart,
Persuasion |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Before Adam by Jack London: the Tree People were lying in wait, and they drove us
back. Lop-Ear and I slept that night in a dwarf tree,
no larger than a bush. Here was no security, and we
would have been easy prey for any hunting animal that
chanced along.
In the morning, what of our new-gained respect for the
Tree People, we faced into the mountains. That we had
no definite plan, or even idea, I am confident. We
were merely driven on by the danger we had escaped. Of
our wanderings through the mountains I have only misty
memories. We were in that bleak region many days, and
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