| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare: As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her 'love,' for whose dear love I rise and fall.
CLII
In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing;
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing:
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: At last I took my way home again, slowly getting all but
inextricably lost, as I did whenever I went out in Venice:
so that it was considerably past midnight when I reached my door.
The sala, upstairs, was as dark as usual and my lamp as I crossed
it found nothing satisfactory to show me. I was disappointed,
for I had notified Miss Tita that I would come back for a report,
and I thought she might have left a light there as a sign.
The door of the ladies' apartment was closed; which seemed an intimation
that my faltering friend had gone to bed, tired of waiting for me.
I stood in the middle of the place, considering, hoping she would
hear me and perhaps peep out, saying to myself too that she would
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: horrible thirst for love, and would have love beyond their power to
give.
The world refused him nothing save faith and prayer, the soothing and
consoling love that is not of this world. He was obeyed--it was a
horrible position.
The torrents of pain, and pleasure, and thought that shook his soul
and his bodily frame would have overwhelmed the strongest human being;
but in him there was a power of vitality proportioned to the power of
the sensations that assailed him. He felt within him a vague immensity
of longing that earth could not satisfy. He spent his days on
outspread wings, longing to traverse the luminous fields of space to
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