| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: tories and churches, silent and abandoned; as I thought of
the multitudinous hopes and efforts, the innumerable hosts
of lives that had gone to build this human reef, and of the
swift and ruthless destruction that had hung over it all; when
I realised that the shadow had been rolled back, and that
men might still live in the streets, and this dear vast dead
city of mine be once more alive and powerful, I felt a wave
of emotion that was near akin to tears.
The torment was over. Even that day the healing would
begin. The survivors of the people scattered over the coun-
try--leaderless, lawless, foodless, like sheep without a shep-
War of the Worlds |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: melancholy in turn, and her gaiety, like her sadness, seemed
spontaneous. She could be gracious, disdainful, insolent, or
confiding at will. Her apparent good nature was real; she had no
temptation to descend to malignity. But at each moment her mood
changed; she was full of confidence or craft; her moving
tenderness would give place to a heart-breaking hardness and
insensibility. Yet how paint her as she was, without bringing
together all the extremes of feminine nature? In a word, the
Duchess was anything that she wished to be or to seem. Her face
was slightly too long. There was a grace in it, and a certain
thinness and fineness that recalled the portraits of the Middle
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Four Arthurian Romances by Chretien DeTroyes: "Whoever heard you or saw you, let him be damned, so far as I am
concerned. I was probably deep in thought when you forbade me to
cross the ford. But be assured that I would make you reset it,
if I could just lay one of my hands on your bridle." And the
other replies: "Why, what of that? If you dare, you may seize my
bridle here and now. I do not esteem your proud threats so much
as a handful of ashes." And he replies: "That suits me
perfectly. However the affair may turn out, I should like to lay
my hands on you." Then the other knight advances to the middle
of the ford, where the other lays his left hand upon his bridle,
and his right hand upon his leg, pulling, dragging, and pressing
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