| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: society remarked, not without astonishment, that the linen of the
chevalier was frayed and rusty, that his hair was irregularly combed
and brushed. With a frowsy head the Chevalier de Valois could no
longer be said to exist! A few of his ivory teeth deserted, though the
keenest observers of human life were unable to discover to what body
they had hitherto belonged, whether to a foreign legion or whether
they were indigenous, vegetable or animal; whether age had pulled them
from the chevalier's mouth, or whether they were left forgotten in the
drawer of his dressing-table. The cravat was crooked, indifferent to
elegance. The negroes' heads grew pale with dust and grease. The
wrinkles of the face were blackened and puckered; the skin became
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: crystal grows under ground where no eye has seen it; that which is where
the germ in the egg stirs; which moves the outstretched fingers of the
little newborn babe, and keeps the leaves of the trees pointing upward;
which moves where the jelly-fish sail alone on the sunny seas, and is where
the lichens form on the mountains' rocks.
And the man looked.
And the angel touched him.
But the man bowed his head and shuddered. He whispered--"It is God!"
And the angel re-covered the man's eyes. And when he uncovered them there
was one walking from them a little way off;--for the angel had re-clothed
the soul in its outward form and vesture--and the man knew who it was.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: Paris at once, Mrs. Waldeaux, and will take apartments
there. You will remain with Miss Vance."
"Yes, I know. I am to remain----" Frances passed her
hand once or twice over her mouth irresolutely. "But
Oxford, George?" she said. "You forget your
examinations?"
George took off his spectacles and wiped them.
"Speak! Have you no mind of your own?" his wife
whispered. "I will tell you, then, madam. He has done
with that silly whim! A priest, indeed! I am Catholic,
and priests do not marry. He goes to Paris to study art.
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