| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: men, Helicon. Here he stopped, and, parched with thirst, resolved
to allay it in this limpid stream. Thrice with profane hands he
essayed to raise the water to his lips, and thrice it slipped all
through his fingers. Then he stopped prone on his breast, but, ere
his mouth had kissed the liquid crystal, Apollo came, and in the
channel held his shield betwixt the Modern and the fountain, so
that he drew up nothing but mud. For, although no fountain on
earth can compare with the clearness of Helicon, yet there lies at
bottom a thick sediment of slime and mud; for so Apollo begged of
Jupiter, as a punishment to those who durst attempt to taste it
with unhallowed lips, and for a lesson to all not to draw too deep
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: thin, sharp sound that rang through my head like the notes of a
harmonica.
"Suffer!" she cried, "suffer! So it must be!"
We came out of the church; we went through the dirtiest streets of the
town, till we came at last to a dingy dwelling, and she bade me enter
in. She dragged me with her, calling to me in a harsh, tuneless voice
like a cracked bell:
"Defend me! defend me!"
Together we went up a winding staircase. She knocked at a door in the
darkness, and a mute, like some familiar of the Inquisition, opened to
her. In another moment we stood in a room hung with ancient, ragged
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: "Oh yes; that is what the bull is for. They tired him out, and got
him at last. He kept rushing the matador, who always slipped
smartly and gracefully aside in time, waiting for a sure chance;
and at last it came; the bull made a deadly plunge for him - was
avoided neatly, and as he sped by, the long sword glided silently
into him, between left shoulder and spine - in and in, to the hilt.
He crumpled down, dying."
"Ah, Antonio, it IS the noblest sport that ever was. I would give
a year of my life to see it. Is the bull always killed?"
"Yes. Sometimes a bull is timid, finding himself in so strange a
place, and he stands trembling, or tries to retreat. Then
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