| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: Miss Bart, glowing with the haste of a precipitate descent upon
the train, headed a group composed of the Dorsets, young
Silverton and Lord Hubert Dacey, who had barely time to spring
into the carriage, and envelop Selden in ejaculations of surprise
and welcome, before the whistle of departure sounded. The party,
it appeared, were hastening to Nice in response to a sudden
summons to dine with the Duchess of Beltshire and to see the
water-fete in the bay; a plan evidently improvised--in spite of
Lord Hubert's protesting "Oh, I say, you know,"--for the express
purpose of defeating Mrs. Bry's endeavour to capture the Duchess.
During the laughing relation of this manoeuvre, Selden had time
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: in his chaloupe. Pichou did not understand what his master had been
saying about him: but he thought he was called, and he had a sense
of duty; and besides, he was wishful to show proper courtesy to
well-dressed and respectable strangers. He was a great dog, thirty
inches high at the shoulder; broad-chested, with straight, sinewy
legs; and covered with thick, wavy, cream-coloured hair from the
tips of his short ears to the end of his bushy tail--all except the
left side of his face. That was black from ear to nose--coal-black;
and in the centre of this storm-cloud his eye gleamed like fire.
What did Pichou know about that ominous sign? No one had ever told
him. He had no looking-glass. He ran up to the porch where the men
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: these strange things, and even more plainly how much she was
interested in La Palferine.
"In 1829, one of the most influential, steady, and clever of dramatic
writers was du Bruel. His real name is unknown to the public, on the
play-bills he is de Cursy. Under the Restoration he had a place in the
Civil Service; and being really attached to the elder branch, he sent
in his resignation bravely in 1830, and ever since has written twice
as many plays to fill the deficit in his budget made by his noble
conduct. At that time du Bruel was forty years old; you know the story
of his life. Like many of his brethren, he bore a stage dancer an
affection hard to explain, but well known in the whole world of
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