| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: of himself in a mirror.
He beheld all at once something concrete and personal,
obtruded into the heart of his reverie, the sight of
which dimly astounded him. For the moment, with opened
lips he stared at it,--then slowly brought himself
to comprehend what had happened. An old man had by some
oversight of the hotel servants been allowed to enter
the room unannounced. He had wandered in noiselessly,
and had moved in a purblind fashion to the centre of
the apartment. The vagueness of the expression on his face
and of his movements hinted at a vacant mind or too much
The Market-Place |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: link my fate. I had told her the secret of my name; she belonged to a
powerful family; she was a friend of Mme. du Barry; I hoped everything
from the favor shown me by Louis XV.; I trusted in her. Acting on her
advice, I went to London to consult a famous oculist, and after a stay
of several months in London she deserted me in Hyde Park. She had
stripped me of all that I had, and left me without resource. Nor could
I make complaint, for to disclose my name was to lay myself open to
the vengeance of my native city; I could appeal to no one for aid, I
feared Venice. The woman put spies about me to exploit my infirmity. I
spare you a tale of adventures worthy of Gil Blas.--Your Revolution
followed. For two whole years that creature kept me at the Bicetre as
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from From London to Land's End by Daniel Defoe: with them the love of fine paintings so universally spread itself
among the nobility and persons of figure all over the kingdom that
it is incredible what collections have been made by English
gentlemen since that time, and how all Europe has been rummaged, as
we may say, for pictures to bring over hither, where for twenty
years they yielded the purchasers, such as collected them for sale,
immense profit. But the rates are abated since that, and we begin
to be glutted with the copies and frauds of the Dutch and Flemish
painters who have imposed grossly upon us. But to return to the
palace of Hampton Court. Queen Mary lived not to see it completely
finished, and her death, with the other difficulties of that reign,
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