| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: It was a beautiful summer morning, and in whatever fashion the young
American looked at things, they must have seemed to him charming.
He had come from Geneva the day before by the little steamer,
to see his aunt, who was staying at the hotel--Geneva having been
for a long time his place of residence. But his aunt had a headache--
his aunt had almost always a headache--and now she was shut up in
her room, smelling camphor, so that he was at liberty to wander about.
He was some seven-and-twenty years of age; when his friends spoke
of him, they usually said that he was at Geneva "studying."
When his enemies spoke of him, they said--but, after all, he had
no enemies; he was an extremely amiable fellow, and universally liked.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: hand - a hand of trumps. With this he came boldly to renew the game.
He was as smooth as oil at first, a very penitent, confessing himself
mad in what he had done on that Sunday night - mad with despair and
rage at having been defeated in the noble task to which he had turned
his hands. His penitence might have had little effect upon the
Westmacotts had he not known how to insinuate that it might be best
for them to lend an ear to it - and a forgiving one.
"You will tell Mr. Westmacott, Jasper," he had said, when Jasper told
him that they could not receive him, "that he would be unwise not to
see me, and the same to Mistress Wilding."
And old Jasper had carried his message, and had told Richard of the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Yates Pride by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: much older. The Lancaster house was also a colonial mansion,
much after the fashion of Eudora's, but it showed signs of
continued opulence. Eudora's, behind her trees and leafing
vines, was gray for lack of paint. Some of the colonial
ornamental details about porches and roof were sloughing off or
had already disappeared. The Lancaster house gleamed behind its
grove of evergreen trees as white and perfect as in its youth.
The windows showed rich slants of draperies behind their green
glister of old glass.
A gardener, with a boy assistant, was at work in the grounds when
Eudora entered. He touched his cap. He was an old man who had
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