| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: break them, like their own legs, before their time. Time is their
tyrant: it fails them, it escapes them; they can neither expand it nor
cut it short. What soul can remain great, pure, moral, and generous,
and, consequently, what face retain its beauty in this depraving
practice of a calling which compels one to bear the weight of the
public sorrows, to analyze them, to weigh them, estimate them, and
mark them out by rule? Where do these folk put aside their
hearts? . . . I do not know; but they leave them somewhere or other,
when they have any, before they descend each morning into the abyss of
the misery which puts families on the rack. For them there is no such
thing as mystery; they see the reverse side of society, whose
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: "I should think so!" cried Newman. "And does she know you
have come to me?"
"She asked me where I was going, and I mentioned your name,"
said Mrs. Bread.
"What did she say to that?"
"She looked at me very hard, and she turned very red. Then she bade
me leave her. I was all ready to go, and I had got the coachman,
who is an Englishman, to bring down my poor box and to fetch me a cab.
But when I went down myself to the gate I found it closed.
My lady had sent orders to the porter not to let me pass, and by
the same orders the porter's wife--she is a dreadful sly old body--
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: They found that the dagger was gone, and they notified the police
and pawnbrokers everywhere. It was a great haul, yes, but
the old woman won't get anything out of it, because she'll get caught."
"Did they offer a reward?" asked Buckstone.
"Yes, five hundred dollars for the knife, and five hundred more
for the thief."
"What a leather-headed idea!" exclaimed the constable.
"The thief das'n't go near them, nor send anybody.
Whoever goes is going to get himself nabbed,
for their ain't any pawnbroker that's going to lose the chance to--"
If anybody had noticed Tom's face at that time, the gray-green color
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