| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lesson of the Master by Henry James: privilege, conscious of no disrepair from so short and easy a
journey and always liking to take at once a general perceptive
possession of a new scene. He stood there a little with his eyes
on the group and on the admirable picture, the wide grounds of an
old country-house near London - that only made it better - on a
splendid Sunday in June. "But that lady, who's SHE?" he said to
the servant before the man left him.
"I think she's Mrs. St. George, sir."
"Mrs. St. George, the wife of the distinguished - " Then Paul
Overt checked himself, doubting if a footman would know.
"Yes, sir - probably, sir," said his guide, who appeared to wish to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: DE BALZAC.
THE ALKAHEST
(THE HOUSE OF CLAES)
CHAPTER I
There is a house at Douai in the rue de Paris, whose aspect, interior
arrangements, and details have preserved, to a greater degree than
those of other domiciles, the characteristics of the old Flemish
buildings, so naively adapted to the patriarchal manners and customs
of that excellent land. Before describing this house it may be well,
in the interest of other writers, to explain the necessity for such
didactic preliminaries,--since they have roused a protest from certain
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: eyes under the hood; but saw instead a slender brown boy, in some
kind of fanciful page's dress, who thrust a folded paper between
his fingers and vanished in the throng. Tony, in a tingle,
glanced surreptitiously at the Count, who appeared absorbed in
his prayers. The crowd, at the ringing of a bell, had in fact
been overswept by a sudden wave of devotion; and Tony seized the
moment to step beneath a lighted shrine with his letter.
"I am in dreadful trouble and implore your help. Polixena"--he
read; but hardly had he seized the sense of the words when a hand
fell on his shoulder, and a stern-looking man in a cocked hat,
and bearing a kind of rod or mace, pronounced a few words in
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