| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: sick man in a fever fit; he had looked like an opium-eater during the
brief period of excitement that the drug can give; now, on his return,
he seemed to be in the condition of utter exhaustion in which the
patient dies after the fever departs, or to be suffering from the
horrible prostration that follows on excessive indulgence in the
delights of narcotics. The infernal power that had upheld him through
his debauches had left him, and the body was left unaided and alone to
endure the agony of remorse and the heavy burden of sincere
repentance. Claparon's troubles every one could guess; but Claparon
reappeared, on the other hand, with sparkling eyes, holding his head
high with the pride of Lucifer. The crisis had passed from the one man
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: the street hurries without a glance by some familiar monument.
"Information concerning the period previous to her coming to
England. . . ." The words were an evocation. He saw her again as
she had looked at their first meeting, the poor woman of genius
with her long pale face and short-sighted eyes, softened a little
by the grace of youth and inexperience, but so incapable even then
of any hold upon the pulses. When she spoke, indeed, she was
wonderful, more wonderful, perhaps, than when later, to Glennard's
fancy at least, the conscious of memorable things uttered seemed
to take from even her most intimate speech the perfect bloom of
privacy. It was in those earliest days, if ever, that he had come
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: The river was swollen by the storm full to its banks, and the willow trees
dipped their half-drowned branches into its water. Wherever there was a
gap between them, you could see it flow, red and muddy, with the stumps
upon it. But the little figure ran on and on; never looking, never
thinking; panting, panting! There, where the rocks were the thickest;
there, where on the open space the moonlight shone; there, where the
prickly pears were tangled, and the rocks cast shadows, on it ran; the
little hands clinched, the little heart beating, the eyes fixed always
ahead.
It was not far to run now. Only the narrow path between the high rocks and
the river.
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