| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Street of Seven Stars by Mary Roberts Rinehart: obliged to say, Dr. Byrne, that under the circumstances had the
girl come here I could hardly--Frank, I will speak!--I could
hardly have taken her in."
Peter went white and ducked as from a physical blow, stumbling
out into the hall again. There he thought of something to say in
reply, repudiation, thought better of it, started down the
stairs.
Boyer followed him helplessly. At the street door, however, he
put his hand on Peter's shoulder. "You know, old man, I don't
believe that. These women--"
"I know," said Peter simply. "Thank you. Good-night."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: Paris. Meanwhile they were bound to be attentive to old M. de
Negrepelisse (who kept them waiting so long that his son-in-law in
fact predeceased him), and Nais' brilliant intellectual gifts, and the
wealth that lay like undiscovered ore in her nature, profited her
nothing, underwent the transforming operation of Time and changed to
absurdities. For our absurdities spring, in fact, for the most part,
from the good in us, from some faculty or quality abnormally
developed. Pride, untempered by intercourse with the great world
becomes stiff and starched by contact with petty things; in a loftier
moral atmosphere it would have grown to noble magnanimity. Enthusiasm,
that virtue within a virtue, forming the saint, inspiring the devotion
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: spring up at once from the first rapid exercise of the wits, and
beget none but very superficial and very uncertain notions. Men
who live in ages of equality have a great deal of curiosity and
very little leisure; their life is so practical, so confused, so
excited, so active, that but little time remains to them for
thought. Such men are prone to general ideas because they spare
them the trouble of studying particulars; they contain, if I may
so speak, a great deal in a little compass, and give, in a little
time, a great return. If then, upon a brief and inattentive
investigation, a common relation is thought to be detected
between certain obtects, inquiry is not pushed any further; and
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