| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: and chieftain among City men, and transfigure him into
a being for whom all City things were an abomination.
In his waking hours, the conflict between these aims did
not specially force itself upon his attention: he mused upon,
and spun fancies about, either one indifferently,
and they seemed not at all irreconcilable. But his dreams
were full of warfare,--wearily saturated with strife,
and endless endeavour to do things which could not be done,
and panic-stricken terrors before the shadow of shapeless
calamities,--until he dreaded to go to sleep. Then he
discovered that an extra two glasses of whiskey-and-water
The Market-Place |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: As other humans, too, began to grow weary of the expectation of
constant perfection in their relationships, scenes similar to this
one began to be repeated with increasing frequency. A loose shoe
lace, a chipped fingernail, a shiny nose--all gradually became
sources of romantic and emotional attraction, and those very
characteristics that had before been viewed as defects soon came to
be seen as emblems of the truly and desirably human, as guarantees
of that unique inner fire that no amount of perfectly crafted
plastic could equal.
The word "human" now began to be associated with the genuine, the
natural--and the beautiful. It became not uncommon to hear a young
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: keeping a somewhat vague and belated but constant eye upon the
doings of their country as chronicled in a bi-weekly paper. They
were all immensely interested in royalty, and would read paragraphs
aloud to each other about how the Princess Beatrice or the Princess
Maud had opened a fancy bazaar, looking remarkably well in plain
grey poplin trimmed with Irish lace--an industry which, as is well
known, the Royal Family has set its heart on rehabilitating. Upon
which Mrs. Farnham's comment invariably would be, 'How thoughtful of
them, dear!' and Alice would usually say, 'Well, if I were a
princess, I should like something nicer than plain grey poplin.'
Alice, being the youngest, was not always expected to think before
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