| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: conditions, prohibited from child-bearing at all; and that even those among
us who are child-bearers are required, in proportion as the class of race
to which we belong stands high in the scale of civilisation, to produce in
most cases a limited number of offspring; so that even for these of us,
child-bearing and suckling, instead of filling the entire circle of female
life from the first appearance of puberty to the end of middle age, becomes
an episodal occupation, employing from three or four to ten or twenty of
the threescore-and-ten-years which are allotted to human life. In such
societies the statement (so profoundly true when made with regard to most
savage societies, and even largely true with regard to those in the
intermediate stages of civilisation) that the main and continuous
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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: suspicious noise troubled the peace of the beautiful valley encircled
on this side by the forest of Nodesme. Marthe, exhausted and
trembling, was awaiting some explanation of their hurried ride. What
was she engaged in? Was she to aid in a good deed or an evil one? At
that instant Michu bent to his wife's ear and whispered:--
"Go the house and ask to speak to the Comtesse de Cinq-Cygne; when you
see her beg her to speak to you alone. If no one can overhear you, say
to her: 'Mademoiselle, the lives of your two cousins are in danger,
and he who can explain the how and why is waiting to speak to you.' If
she seems afraid, if she distrusts you, add these words: 'They are
conspiring against the First Consul and the conspiracy is discovered.'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: much exaggerated: they consist mainly after all in one
comprehensive defect."
"A want of will?"
"A want of dignity."
"He doesn't recognise his obligations?"
"On the contrary, he recognises them with effusion, especially in
public: he smiles and bows and beckons across the street to them.
But when they pass over he turns away, and he speedily loses them
in the crowd. The recognition's purely spiritual--it isn't in the
least social. So he leaves all his belongings to other people to
take care of. He accepts favours, loans, sacrifices--all with
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