| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: looked much as she had looked to him that morning at Notre Dame; he
noted in fact the suggestive sameness of her discreet and delicate
dress. It seemed to speak--perhaps a little prematurely or too
finely--of the sense in which she would help Mrs. Pocock with the
shops. The way that lady took her in, moreover, added depth to his
impression of what Miss Gostrey, by their common wisdom, had
escaped. He winced as he saw himself but for that timely prudence
ushering in Maria as a guide and an example. There was however a
touch of relief for him in his glimpse, so far as he had got it, of
Sarah's line. She "knew Paris." Madame de Vionnet had, for that
matter, lightly taken this up. "Ah then you've a turn for that, an
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: so much concern themselves for the loss of their friends, expecting
that themselves should be summoned the next hour.
Business led me out sometimes to the other end of the town, even
when the sickness was chiefly there; and as the thing was new to me,
as well as to everybody else, it was a most surprising thing to see
those streets which were usually so thronged now grown desolate, and
so few people to be seen in them, that if I had been a stranger and at a
loss for my way, I might sometimes have gone the length of a whole
street (I mean of the by-streets), and seen nobody to direct me except
watchmen set at the doors of such houses as were shut up, of which I
shall speak presently.
 A Journal of the Plague Year |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: jected to him praying aloud in the evening. Why?
He expected the boy to repeat the prayer aloud
after him by-and-by, as he used to do after his old
father when he was a child--in his own country.
And I discovered he longed for their boy to grow
up so that he could have a man to talk with in that
language that to our ears sounded so disturbing,
so passionate, and so bizarre. Why his wife
should dislike the idea he couldn't tell. But that
would pass, he said. And tilting his head know-
ingly, he tapped his breastbone to indicate that she
 Amy Foster |