| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: every spot with his toys. Valerie's room and dressing-room were
situated in the part of the house which, on one side of the courtyard,
joined the front half, looking out on the street, to the wing forming
the inner side of the court backing against the adjoining property.
Handsomely hung with chintz, furnished with rosewood, and thickly
carpeted, they proclaimed themselves as belonging to a pretty woman--
and indeed suggested the kept mistress. A clock in the fashionable
style stood on the velvet-covered mantelpiece. There was a nicely
fitted cabinet, and the Chinese flower-stands were handsomely filled.
The bed, the toilet-table, the wardrobe with its mirror, the little
sofa, and all the lady's frippery bore the stamp of fashion or
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: the great change which had taken place in the country around her
--the substitution of civil order for military violence, and the
strength gained by the law and its adherents over those who were
called in Gaelic song, "the stormy sons of the sword." Her own
diminished consequence and straitened circumstances she indeed
felt, but for this the death of MacTavish Mhor was, in her
apprehension, a sufficing reason; and she doubted not that she
should rise to her former state of importance when Hamish Bean
(or fair-haired James) should be able to wield the arms of his
father. If, then, Elspat was repelled, rudely when she demanded
anything necessary for her wants, or the accommodation of her
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: twelve years old."
"That's so. Of course, I've changed entirely since then,
and variety is what the crowned heads want, I guess."
He passed his fingers through his crop of short hair, and pressed
them one at a time on the glass. Angelo made a print of his fingers
on another glass, and Luigi followed with a third. Wilson marked the
glasses with names and dates, and put them away. Tom gave one of
his little laughs, and said:
"I thought I wouldn't say anything, but if variety is what you are after,
you have wasted a piece of glass. The hand print of one twin is the
same as the hand print of the fellow twin."
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