| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: like a fragile leaf, the plaything of the north wind in the autumn;
the hull creaked, it seemed ready to go to pieces. Fearful shrieks
went up, followed by an awful silence.
There was a strange difference between the behavior of the folk in the
bows and that of the rich or great people at the other end of the
boat. The young mother clasped her infant tightly to her breast every
time that a great wave threatened to engulf the fragile vessel; but
she clung to the hope that the stranger's words had set in her heart.
Each time that the eyes turned to his face she drew fresh faith at the
sight, the strong faith of a helpless woman, a mother's faith. She
lived by that divine promise, the loving words from his lips; the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: Rabourdin was lost. Sebastien, who admired his chief without
reservation, and who was, as yet, wholly ignorant of the evils of
bureaucracy, had the follies of guilelessness as well as its grace.
Blamed on a former occasion for carrying away these papers, he now
bravely acknowledged his fault to its fullest extent; he related how
he had put away both the memorandum and the copy carefully in a box in
the office where no one would ever find them. Tears rolled from his
eyes as he realized the greatness of his offence.
"Come, come!" said Rabourdin, kindly. "Don't be so imprudent again,
but never mind now. Go to the office very early tomorrow morning; here
is the key of a small safe which is in my roller secretary; it shuts
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: sent for, as the pilot-boat was too large and unwieldy for
approaching the rock when there was any roughness or run of
the sea at the entrance of the landing creeks.
Upon this fortunate change of circumstances, sixteen of
the artificers were sent, at two trips, in one of the boats,
with instructions for Spink to proceed with them to the
floating light. This being accomplished, the remaining
sixteen followed in the two boats belonging to the service of
the rock. Every one felt the most perfect happiness at
leaving the Bell Rock this morning, though a very hard and
even dangerous passage to the floating light still awaited us,
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