| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: tradition is mute. Let us confess at once that this tale savors
strongly of the marvelous, the mysterious, and the vague; elements
which Flemish narrators have infused into a story retailed so often to
gatherings of workers on winter evenings, that the details vary widely
in poetic merit and incongruity of detail. It has been told by every
generation, handed down by grandames at the fireside, narrated night
and day, and the chronicle has changed its complexion somewhat in
every age. Like some great building that has suffered many
modifications of successive generations of architects, some sombre
weather-beaten pile, the delight of a poet, the story would drive the
commentator and the industrious winnower of words, facts, and dates to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: "You're a very nice girl; but I wish you would flirt with me,
and me only," said Winterbourne.
"Ah! thank you--thank you very much; you are the last man I should
think of flirting with. As I have had the pleasure of informing you,
you are too stiff."
"You say that too often," said Winterbourne.
Daisy gave a delighted laugh. "If I could have the sweet hope of making
you angry, I should say it again."
"Don't do that; when I am angry I'm stiffer than ever.
But if you won't flirt with me, do cease, at least, to flirt
with your friend at the piano; they don't understand that sort
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: one of the senior noblemen of the British Peerage. They
illustrate the fact that Nature, even when perverted by
generations of famine fever, ignores the distinctions we set up
between men. This group of men and women, all tolerably
intelligent and thoughtful looking, are so-called enemies of
society--Nihilists, Anarchists, Communards, members of the
International,and so on. These other poor devils, worried, stiff,
strumous, awkward, vapid, and rather coarse, with here and there
a passably pretty woman, are European kings, queens, grand-dukes,
and the like. Here are ship-captains, criminals, poets, men of
science, peers, peasants, political economists, and
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