| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: lost him, I might have known the exact position of my cell, I might
have found my way back to the Treasury and returned to Venice when
Napoleon crushed the Republic--
"Still, blind as I am, let us go back to Venice! I shall find the door
of my prison, I shall see the gold through the prison walls, I shall
hear it where it lies under the water; for the events which brought
about the fall of Venice befell in such a way that the secret of the
hoard must have perished with Bianca's brother, Vendramin, a doge to
whom I looked to make my peace with the Ten. I sent memorials to the
First Consul; I proposed an agreement with the Emperor of Austria;
every one sent me about my business for a lunatic. Come! we will go to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a dis-
tance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible
from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way
through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently
distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however,
struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or
the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies
hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse,
comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical
instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality
to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: dislocation of his view, the wrong he had done her seemed a tie
between them.
To indulge these emotions he fell into the habit, on Sunday
afternoons, of solitary walks prolonged till after dusk. The days
were lengthening, there was a touch of spring in the air, and his
wanderings now usually led him to the Park and its outlying
regions.
One Sunday, tired of aimless locomotion, he took a cab at the Park
gates and let it carry him out to the Riverside Drive. It was a
gray afternoon streaked with east wind. Glennard's cab advanced
slowly, and as he leaned back, gazing with absent intentness at
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