| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: she was all the while looking at his life, judging it, measuring
it, in the light of the thing she knew, which grew to be at last,
with the consecration of the years, never mentioned between them
save as "the real truth" about him. That had always been his own
form of reference to it, but she adopted the form so quietly that,
looking back at the end of a period, he knew there was no moment at
which it was traceable that she had, as he might say, got inside
his idea, or exchanged the attitude of beautifully indulging for
that of still more beautifully believing him.
It was always open to him to accuse her of seeing him but as the
most harmless of maniacs, and this, in the long run--since it
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Episode Under the Terror by Honore de Balzac: infinitely great, yet so little, poverty-stricken yet noble, a
mingling of sacred and profane.
The stranger came forward reverently to kneel between the two nuns.
But the priest had tied crape round the chalice of the crucifix,
having no other way of marking the mass as a funeral service; it was
as if God himself had been in mourning. The man suddenly noticed this,
and the sight appeared to call up some overwhelming memory, for great
drops of sweat stood out on his broad forehead.
Then the four silent actors in the scene looked mysteriously at one
another; and their souls in emulation seemed to stir and communicate
the thoughts within them until all were melted into one feeling of awe
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: that Tyler had left his native New England, and the
first time he could have seen the inside of a regular
theater, thus confirming the statements made in the
preface of the play as to the author's inexperience in
the rules of the drama, and as to the short time within
which it was written, as his arrival in New-York was
within but a few weeks of its first performance.
Tyler was apparently immediately attracted to the
theater, for he became a constant visitor before and
behind the curtain, and rapidly gained the friendship
of all the performers, particularly that of Wignell, the
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