| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: hurried me from the spot, agitated by a crowd of feelings, all of
them painful.
When I had overcome the shock of this great disappointment, I
renewed gradually my acquaintance with one or two old companions,
who, though of infinitely less interest to my feelings than my
unfortunate friend, served to relieve the pressure of actual
solitude, and who were not perhaps the less open to my advances
that I was a bachelor somewhat stricken in years, newly arrived
from foreign parts, and certainly independent, if not wealthy.
I was considered as a tolerable subject of speculation by some,
and I could not be burdensome to any. I was therefore, according
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: expression to his profile by the stiffness of its short bristles. The
eyes, too small for his enormous face, and sloping like those of a
pig, betrayed cunning and also laziness; but at this particular moment
they were gleaming with the intent look he cast upon the river. The
sole garments of this curious figure were an old blouse, formerly
blue, and trousers of the coarse burlap used in Paris to wrap bales.
All city people would have shuddered at the sight of his broken
sabots, without even a wisp of straw to stop the cracks; and it is
very certain that the blouse and the trousers had no money value at
all except to a paper-maker.
As Blondet examined this rural Diogenes, he admitted the possibility
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: for he had never yet enjoyed the sensation of guiding
through the summer starlight a skiff freighted with a fresh
and beautiful young girl.
"I shouldn't think she'd want to," said her mother.
"I should think she'd rather go indoors."
"I'm sure Mr. Winterbourne wants to take me," Daisy declared.
"He's so awfully devoted!"
"I will row you over to Chillon in the starlight."
"I don't believe it!" said Daisy.
"Well!" ejaculated the elder lady again.
"You haven't spoken to me for half an hour," her daughter went on.
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