| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous by Oscar Wilde: Women should not be idle in their homes,
For idle fingers make a thoughtless heart.
Sit down, I say.
BIANCA. What shall I spin?
SIMONE. Oh! spin
Some robe which, dyed in purple, sorrow might wear
For her own comforting: or some long-fringed cloth
In which a new-born and unwelcome babe
Might wail unheeded; or a dainty sheet
Which, delicately perfumed with sweet herbs,
Might serve to wrap a dead man. Spin what you will;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: touch of inborn grace and courtesy that goes beyond them all. No
array of accomplishments can rival the charm of an unsuspected gift
of nature, brought suddenly to light. I once heard a peasant girl
singing down the Traunthal, and the echo of her song outlives, in
the hearing of my heart, all memories of the grand opera.
The harvest of the gardens and the orchards, the result of prudent
planting and patient cultivation, is full of satisfaction. We
anticipate it in due season, and when it comes we fill our mouths
and are grateful. But pray, kind Providence, let me slip over the
fence out of the garden now and then, to shake a nut-tree that grows
untended in the wood. Give me liberty to put off my black coat for
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: Bible, it is nowhere but in the heart of the fool. Throw
aside this fancy. See what you want, and spend upon that;
distinguish what you do not care about, and spend nothing
upon that. There are not many people who can differentiate
wines above a certain and that not at all a high price. Are
you sure you are one of these? Are you sure you prefer
cigars at sixpence each to pipes at some fraction of a
farthing? Are you sure you wish to keep a gig? Do you care
about where you sleep, or are you not as much at your ease in
a cheap lodging as in an Elizabethan manor-house? Do you
enjoy fine clothes? It is not possible to answer these
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