| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: beautiful things which recalled her former existence. On her chimney-
piece was a fine miniature portrait of Charles X., by Madame Mirbel,
beneath which were engraved the words, "Given by the King"; and, as a
pendant, the portrait of "Madame", who was always her kind friend. On
a table lay an album of costliest price, such as none of the
bourgeoises who now lord it in our industrial and fault-finding
society would have dared to exhibit. This album contained portraits,
about thirty in number, of her intimate friends, whom the world, first
and last, had given her as lovers. The number was a calumny; but had
rumor said ten, it might have been, as her friend Madame d'Espard
remarked, good, sound gossip. The portraits of Maxime de Trailles, de
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: to make plans and lay plots. She was resolved,
Diantha or not, that her granddaughter, her son's
child, should have some fine feathers. The little
conference had taken place in her own room, a large,
sunny one, with a little storeroom opening from it.
Presently Grandmother Wheeler rose, entered the
storeroom, and began rummaging in some old trunks.
Then followed days of secret work. Grandmother
Wheeler had been noted as a fine needlewoman,
and her hand had not yet lost its cunning. She had
one of Amelia's ugly little ginghams, purloined from
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: the fender, the chandelier, the clock, were all in the most unmeaning
style of scroll-work; the round table, a fixture in the middle of the
room, was a mosaic of fragments of Italian and antique marbles,
brought from Rome, where these dissected maps are made of
mineralogical specimens--for all the world like tailors' patterns--an
object of perennial admiration to Crevel's citizen friends. The
portraits of the late lamented Madame Crevel, of Crevel himself, of
his daughter and his son-in-law, hung on the walls, two and two; they
were the work of Pierre Grassou, the favored painter of the
bourgeoisie, to whom Crevel owed his ridiculous Byronic attitude. The
frames, costing a thousand francs each, were quite in harmony with
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