| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: the danger her brother was running. The change from activity to
leisure is, in truth, the critical period for government employees of
all kinds.
Those of them who know not how to substitute, or perhaps cannot
substitute other occupations for the work to which they have been
accustomed, change in a singular manner; some die outright; others
take to fishing, the vacancy of that amusement resembling that of
their late employment under government; others, who are smarter men,
dabble in stocks, lose their savings, and are thankful to obtain a
place in some enterprise that is likely to succeed, after a first
disaster and liquidation, in the hands of an abler management. The
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: My deposition, that I might be free,
Had I stayed free of Caesar; but the word
Of God would have it as you see it is --
And here I am. The cup that I shall drink
Is mine to drink -- the moment or the place
Not mine to say. If it be now in Rome,
Be it now in Rome; and if your faith exceed
The shadow cast of hope, say not of me
Too surely or too soon that years and shipwreck,
And all the many deserts I have crossed
That are not named or regioned, have undone
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: conditions before that spell had spent itself. He would go back to
London of course, but he would go back only when he should have
finished his book. This was the vow he privately made, restoring
his manuscript to the table-drawer. It may be added that it took
him a long time to finish his book, for the subject was as
difficult as it was fine, and he was literally embarrassed by the
fulness of his notes. Something within him warned him that he must
make it supremely good - otherwise he should lack, as regards his
private behaviour, a handsome excuse. He had a horror of this
deficiency and found himself as firm as need be on the question of
the lamp and the file. He crossed the Alps at last and spent the
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