| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare: Threw my affections in his charmed power,
Reserv'd the stalk, and gave him all my flower.
'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,
Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;
Finding myself in honour so forbid,
With safest distance I mine honour shielded:
Experience for me many bulwarks builded
Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil
Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.
'But ah! who ever shunn'd by precedent
The destin'd ill she must herself assay?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: was openly envious; but, no matter how malignant he might be, he kept
within the limits of the law,--neither beyond it nor behind it, like a
parliamentary opposition. He believed his prosperity depended on the
ruin of others, and that whoever was above him was an enemy against
whom all weapons were good. A character like this is very common among
the peasantry.
Violette's present business was to obtain from Malin an extension of
the lease of his farm, which had only six years longer to run. Jealous
of the bailiff's means, he watched him narrowly. The neighbors
reproached him for his intimacy with "Judas"; but the sly old farmer,
wishing to obtain a twelve years' lease, was really lying in wait for
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: "To his utter consternation, he saw Cerizet, emerged from his
wrappings like a butterfly from the chrysalis, holding out the
accursed bundle of documents.
" 'When I was down on my luck, I learned to act on the stage,' added
Cerizet. 'I am as good as Bouffe at old men.'
" 'I have fallen among thieves!' shouted Maxime.
" 'No, Monsieur le Comte, you are in Mlle. Hortense's house. She is a
friend of old Lord Dudley's; he keeps her hidden away here; but she
has the bad taste to like your humble servant.'
" 'If ever I longed to kill a man,' so the Count told me afterwards,
'it was at that moment; but what could one do? Hortense showed her
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