| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Case of The Lamp That Went Out by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: official police life.
"Well," asked the commissioner, as Muller did not continue, "your
tongue is not usually so slow - as you have proved just a few
moments back - what were you going to say now?"
"I was about to ask your pardon for my interruption. It was
unnecessary, I should not have said it."
"Well, I realise that you know better yourself," said Riedau, now
quite friendly again, "and now what else have you to say? Do you
really think that what the young man has just told us is of any
value at all for this case?"
"It seems to me as if it might be of value to us."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Golden Sayings of Epictetus by Epictetus: intrepidity of one who heeds them not. But it is not impossible:
else were happiness also impossible. We should act as we do in
seafaring.
"What can I do?"--Choose the master, the crew, the day, the
opportunity. Then comes a sudden storm. What matters it to me? my
part has been fully done. The matter is in the hands of another--
the Master of the ship. The ship is foundering. What then have I
to do? I do the only thing that remains to me--to be drowned
without fear, without a cry, without upbraiding God, but knowing
that what has been born must likewise perish. For I am not
Eternity, but a human being--a part of the whole, as an hour is
The Golden Sayings of Epictetus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: admirable men in some respects, when their good qualities are kept to
a steady energy by some outward bond. For two years after his retreat
from active life Diard was held captive in his home by the softest
chains. He lived, almost in spite of himself, under the influence of
his wife, who made herself gay and amusing to cheer him, who used the
resources of feminine genius to attract and seduce him to a love of
virtue, but whose ability and cleverness did not go so far as to
simulate love.
At this time all Paris was talking of the affair of a captain in the
army who in a paroxysm of libertine jealousy had killed a woman.
Diard, on coming home to dinner, told his wife that the officer was
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