| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw: Story number two. A German officer finds himself in an inn with
a French lady who has wounded his national vanity. He resolves
to humble her by committing a rape upon her. He announces his
purpose. She remonstrates, implores, flies to the doors and
finds them locked, calls for help and finds none at hand, runs
screaming from side to side, and, after a harrowing scene, is
overpowered and faints. Nothing further being possible on the
stage without actual felony, the officer then relents and leaves
her. When she recovers, she believes that he has carried out his
threat; and during the rest of the play she is represented as
vainly vowing vengeance upon him, whilst she is really falling in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: which are the despair of modern decipherers.
The hall was full, not of students only, but of the most distinguished
men belonging to the clergy, the court, and the legal faculty. There
were some learned foreigners, too--soldiers and rich citizens. The
broad faces were there, with prominent brows and venerable beards,
which fill us with a sort of pious respect for our ancestors when we
see their portraits from the Middle Ages. Lean faces, too, with
burning, sunken eyes, under bald heads yellow from the labors of
futile scholasticism, contrasted with young and eager countenances,
grave faces, warlike faces, and the ruddy cheeks of the financial
class.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: and with whom his talent for talking nonsense has prodigious
success. I delight in his nonsense myself; why is it therefore
that I grudge these happy folk their artless satisfaction? Mystery
of the human heart - abyss of the critical spirit! Mrs. Wimbush
thinks she can answer that question, and as my want of gaiety has
at last worn out her patience she has given me a glimpse of her
shrewd guess. I'm made restless by the selfishness of the
insincere friend - I want to monopolise Paraday in order that he
may push me on. To be intimate with him is a feather in my cap; it
gives me an importance that I couldn't naturally pretend to, and I
seek to deprive him of social refreshment because I fear that
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