| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: didn't know it. But, Lord, I took no notice of the old
woman's ramblings, not I."
"Oh no--it is nothing," said Tess.
Then the talk was of business only.
"You can milk 'em clean, my maidy? I don't want my cow
going azew at this time o' year."
She reassured him on that point, and he surveyed her up
and down. She had been staying indoors a good deal, and
her complexion had grown delicate.
"Quite sure you can stand it? 'Tis comfortable enough
here for rough folk; but we don't live in a cowcumber
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flame and Shadow by Sara Teasdale: The Wind in the Hemlock
Flame and Shadow
I
Blue Squills
How many million Aprils came
Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
A bed of squills, how blue!
And many a dancing April
When life is done with me,
Will lift the blue flame of the flower
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: agitations of the flesh, and thanking God for maintaining his dear
daughter in a state of celibacy; for he had, from his youth up,
adopted the principles of Saint John Chrysostom, who wrote that "the
virgin state is as far above the marriage state as the angel is above
humanity." Accustomed to reverence her uncle, Mademoiselle Cormon
dared not initiate him into the desires which filled her soul for a
change of state. The worthy man, accustomed, on his side, to the ways
of the house, would scarcely have liked the introduction of a husband.
Preoccupied by the sufferings he soothed, lost in the depths of
prayer, the Abbe de Sponde had periods of abstraction which the
habitues of the house regarded as absent-mindedness. In any case, he
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