| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Places of the Heart by H. G. Wells: good at feminine ages. She had a clear sun-browned
complexion, with dark hair and smiling lips. Her features
were finely modelled, with just that added touch of breadth
in the brow and softness in the cheek bones, that faint
flavour of the Amerindian, one sees at times in American
women. Her voice was a very soft and pleasing voice, and she
spoke persuasively and not assertively as so many American
women do. Her determination to make the dry bones of
Stonehenge live shamed the doctor's disappointment with the
place. And when she had spoken, Dr. Martineau noted that she
looked at Sir Richmond as if she expected him at least to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: single one would shake the earth, but which are lost in the spaces of
a world that hath neither east nor west.
"Canst thou comprehend, my poor beloved Tried-one, that unless the
torpor and the veils of sleep had wrapped thee, such sights would rend
and bear away thy mind as the whirlwinds rend and carry into space the
feeble sails, depriving thee forever of thy reason? Dost thou
understand that the Soul itself, raised to its utmost power can
scarcely endure in dreams the burning communications of the Spirit?
"Speed thy way through the luminous spheres; behold, admire, hasten!
Flying thus thou canst pause or advance without weariness. Like other
men, thou wouldst fain be plunged forever in these spheres of light
Seraphita |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: asked if he kept the fasts. The master was much inclined to answer,
"Look at me!" but how could he venture to joke with pious dowagers and
Jansenist confessors? This apocryphal old fellow held such a place in
the lives of the two Maries, they felt such friendship for the grand
and simple-minded artist, who was happy and contented in the mere
comprehension of his art, that after their marriage, they each gave
him an annuity of three hundred francs a year,--a sum which sufficed
to pay for his lodging, beer, pipes, and clothes. Six hundred francs a
year and his lessons put him in Eden. Schmucke had never found courage
to confide his poverty and his aspirations to any but these two
adorable young girls, whose hearts were blooming beneath the snow of
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