| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: telling the truth.
"I changed the numbers of the berths, and it worked well. I got
into the other man's berth, and he came back to mine. The rest was
easy. I dressed in his clothes - luckily, they fitted - and jumped
the train not far from Baltimore, just before the wreck."
"There is something else you must clear up," I said. "Why did you
try to telephone me from M-, and why did you change your mind about
the message?"
He looked astounded.
"You knew I was at M-?" he stammered.
"Yes, we traced you. What about the message?"
 The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: One is to dislike it. The other, to like it rationally. For Art,
as Plato saw, and not without regret, creates in listener and
spectator a form of divine madness. It does not spring from
inspiration, but it makes others inspired. Reason is not the
faculty to which it appeals. If one loves Art at all, one must
love it beyond all other things in the world, and against such
love, the reason, if one listened to it, would cry out. There is
nothing sane about the worship of beauty. It is too splendid to be
sane. Those of whose lives it forms the dominant note will always
seem to the world to be pure visionaries.
ERNEST. Well, at least, the critic will be sincere.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: Gambara leaned across to address Andrea.
"Our worthy host," said he, in an undertone, "threatens to regale us
to-day with a dish of his own concocting, which I recommend you to
avoid, though his wife has had an eye on him. The good man has a mania
for innovations. He ruined himself by experiments, the last of which
compelled him to fly from Rome without a passport--a circumstance he
does not talk about. After purchasing the good-will of a popular
restaurant he was trusted to prepare a banquet given by a lately made
Cardinal, whose household was not yet complete. Giardini fancied he
had an opportunity for distinguishing himself--and he succeeded! for
that same evening he was accused of trying to poison the whole
 Gambara |