| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: that he would wait for her as long as was necessary: the fear
of the "other women" had ceased to trouble her. But, perhaps
for that very reason, the future seemed less exciting than she
had expected. Sometimes she thought it was the sight of that
great house which had overwhelmed her: it was too vast, too
venerable, too like a huge monument built of ancient territorial
traditions and obligations. Perhaps it had been lived in for
too long by too many serious-minded and conscientious women:
somehow she could not picture it invaded by bridge and debts and
adultery. And yet that was what would have to be, of course ...
she could hardly picture either Strefford or herself continuing
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: serious and pensive, and had no mind at such times to admit any one
into his confidence.
Finally, although he was sufficiently acquainted with the customs of
society and with the laws of politeness, to which he conformed as
rigidly as if they had been military regulations; though he had real
mental power, both natural and acquired; and although he had mastered
the art of handling men, the science of tactics, the theory of sabre
play, and the mysteries of the farrier's craft, his learning had been
prodigiously neglected. He knew in a hazy kind of way that Caesar was
a Roman Consul, or an Emperor, and that Alexander was either a Greek
or a Macedonian; he would have conceded either quality or origin in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: denied anything he wanted, he would lie down on his baby back on
the dirty ground and kick and scream and literally "raise the
dust" until he got it. My wife tells me that not infrequently
when she called at the Chinese homes, and they set before her a
dish of which she was especially fond, and she had eaten of it as
much as she thought she ought, the ladies would ask in a
good-natured way in reply to some of her remarks about her
voracious appetite, "Shall we get down and knock our heads on the
floor, and beg you not to eat too much, and make yourself sick,
like the eunuchs do to the Emperor?" There is nothing to wonder
at that Kuang Hsu, without parental restraint, and fawned upon by
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