| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: refreshment, and he was likely to be reduced to the
usual expedient of knights-errant, who, on such occasions,
turned their horses to graze, and laid themselves
down to meditate on their lady-mistress, with
an oak-tree for a canopy. But the Black Knight
either had no mistress to meditate upon, or, being
as indifferent in love as he seemed to be in war,
was not sufficiently occupied by passionate reflections
upon her beauty and cruelty, to be able to
parry the effects of fatigue and hunger, and suffer
love to act as a substitute for the solid comforts of
Ivanhoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: him mere desire became a guiding force and the motive power of his
whole being, the stimulus to his imagination, the reason of his
actions. Notwithstanding the pains taken by a clever mother, who was
alarmed when she detected this predisposition, Rodolphe wished for
things as a poet imagines, as a mathematician calculates, as a painter
sketches, as a musician creates melodies. Tender-hearted, like his
mother, he dashed with inconceivable violence and impetus of thought
after the object of his desires; he annihilated time. While dreaming
of the fulfilment of his schemes, he always overlooked the means of
attainment. "When my son has children," said his other, "he will want
them born grown up."
Albert Savarus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: hand--but just simply to drive four horses. Now it is all right
enough to begin with four work-horses pulling a load of several
tons. But to begin with four light horses, all running, and a
light rig that seems to outrun them--well, when things happen they
happen quickly. My weakness was total ignorance. In particular,
my fingers lacked training, and I made the mistake of depending on
my eyes to handle the reins. This brought me up against a
disastrous optical illusion. The bight of the off head-line,
being longer and heavier than that of the off wheel-line, hung
lower. In a moment requiring quick action, I invariably mistook
the two lines. Pulling on what I thought was the wheel-line, in
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