| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: step further, I too am an exile. Office and leading are closed to
me. The political career that promised so much for me is shattered
and ended for ever.
I look out from this vine-wreathed veranda under the branches of a
stone pine; I see wide and far across a purple valley whose sides
are terraced and set with houses of pine and ivory, the Gulf of
Liguria gleaming sapphire blue, and cloud-like baseless mountains
hanging in the sky, and I think of lank and coaly steamships heaving
on the grey rollers of the English Channel and darkling streets wet
with rain, I recall as if I were back there the busy exit from
Charing Cross, the cross and the money-changers' offices, the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Sentimental Journey by Laurence Sterne: reverenced it.
The rest of his outline may be given in a few strokes; one might
put it into the hands of any one to design, for 'twas neither
elegant nor otherwise, but as character and expression made it so:
it was a thin, spare form, something above the common size, if it
lost not the distinction by a bend forward in the figure, - but it
was the attitude of Intreaty; and, as it now stands presented to my
imagination, it gained more than it lost by it.
When he had entered the room three paces, he stood still; and
laying his left hand upon his breast (a slender white staff with
which he journey'd being in his right) - when I had got close up to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: great trade for carrying corn by water to London; the county of
Essex being (especially on all that side) a great corn county.
When I have said this I think I have done Malden justice, and said
all of it that there is to be said, unless I should run into the
old story of its antiquity, and tell you it was a Roman colony in
the time of Vespasian, and that it was called Camolodunum. How the
Britons, under Queen Boadicea, in revenge for the Romans' ill-usage
of her - for indeed they used her majesty ill - they stripped her
naked and whipped her publicly through their streets for some
affront she had given them. I say how for this she raised the
Britons round the country, overpowered, and cut in pieces the Tenth
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