| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: 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
a lunatic, then she gained admittance for me at the Blind Asylum;
there was no help for it, I went. I could not kill her; I could not
see; and I was so poor that I could not pay another arm.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: 'Water! Give me water!'
"She jumped to her feet, snatched up the child,
and stood still. He spoke to her, and his passion-
ate remonstrances only increased her fear of that
strange man. I believe he spoke to her for a long
time, entreating, wondering, pleading, ordering, I
suppose. She says she bore it as long as she could.
And then a gust of rage came over him.
"He sat up and called out terribly one word--
some word. Then he got up as though he hadn't
been ill at all, she says. And as in fevered dismay,
Amy Foster |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Rivers by Henry van Dyke: feet begin to slide. Slowly, and standing bolt upright, with the
rod held high above his head, as if it must on no account get wet,
he glides forward up to his neck in the ice-cold bath, gasping with
amazement. There have been other and more serious situations in
life into which, unless I am mistaken, you have made an equally
unwilling and embarrassed entrance, and in which you have been
surprised to find yourself not only up to your neck, but over,--and
you are a lucky man if you have had the presence of mind to stand
still for a moment, before wading out, and make sure at least of
the fish that tempted you into your predicament.
But Rocky Run, they say, exists no longer. It has been blasted by
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