| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: had presented itself under a homelier yet more vivid image--that
of a shaky vehicle, dashed by unbroken steeds over a bumping
road, while she cowered within, aware that the harness wanted
mending, and wondering what would give way first.
Well--everything had given way now; and the wonder was that the
crazy outfit had held together so long. Her sense of being
involved in the crash, instead of merely witnessing it from the
road, was intensified by the way in which Dorset, through his
furies of denunciation and wild reactions of self-contempt, made
her feel the need he had of her, the place she had taken in his
life. But for her, what ear would have been open to his cries?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: compact, so deaf, so torpid, so happy perhaps, that Marechal Victor,
who had been their heroic defender by holding twenty thousand Russians
under Wittgenstein at bay, was forced to open a passage by main force
through this forest of men in order to cross the Beresina with five
thousand gallant fellows whom he was taking to the emperor. The
unfortunate malingerers allowed themselves to be crushed rather than
stir; they perished in silence, smiling at their extinguished fires,
without a thought of France.
It was not until ten o'clock that night that Marechal Victor reached
the bank of the river. Before crossing the bridge which led to Zembin,
he confided the fate of his own rear-guard now left in Studzianka to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: "My tragedy is my mother. Living with her I live with the coffin of my
unborn aspirations. You heard that about the safety-pin to-night. It may
seem to you a little thing, but it ruined my three first gestures. They
were--"
"Impaled on a safety-pin," I suggested.
"Yes, exactly that. And when we are in Vienna I am the victim of moods,
you know. I long to do wild, passionate things. And mamma says, 'Please
pour out my mixture first.' Once I remember I flew into a rage and threw a
washstand jug out of the window. Do you know what she said? 'Sonia, it is
not so much throwing things out of windows, if only you would--'"
"Choose something smaller?" said I.
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