| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton: something to talk about, and some one whom she could scold.
The autumn came, and the winter. Business had fallen off
again, and but few purchasers came to the little shop in the
basement. In January Ann Eliza pawned her mother's cashmere scarf,
her mosaic brooch, and the rosewood what-not on which the clock had
always stood; she would have sold the bedstead too, but for the
persistent vision of Evelina returning weak and weary, and not
knowing where to lay her head.
The winter passed in its turn, and March reappeared with its
galaxies of yellow jonquils at the windy street corners, reminding
Ann Eliza of the spring day when Evelina had come home with a bunch
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: CHOIR.
Nocte surgentes
Vigilemus omnes!
I
THE CASTLE OF VAUTSBERG ON THE RHINE
A chamber in a tower. PRINCE HENRY sitting alone, ill and
restless.
Midnight.
PRINCE HENRY.
I cannot sleep! my fervid brain
Calls up the vanished Past again,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: there would be nothing new in our position. Life, my old shipmate,
life, at any moment and in any view, is as dangerous as a sinking
ship; and yet it is man's handsome fashion to carry umbrellas, to
wear indiarubber over-shoes, to begin vast works, and to conduct
himself in every way as if he might hope to be eternal. And for my
own poor part I should despise the man who, even on board a sinking
ship, should omit to take a pill or to wind up his watch. That, my
friend, would not be the human attitude."
"I beg pardon, sir," said Mr. Spoker. "But what is precisely the
difference between shaving in a sinking ship and smoking in a
powder magazine?"
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