| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay: stones. Ahead, where these rays did not shine, Haunte was guided by
the self-luminous nature of the rocks, grass, and trees. These were
faintly phosphorescent; the vegetation shone out more strongly than
the soil.
The moon was not shining and there were no stars; Maskull therefore
inferred that the upper atmosphere was dense with mist. Once or
twice, from his sensations of choking, he thought that they were
entering a fogbank, but it was a strange kind of fog, for it had the
effect of doubling the intensity of every light in front of them.
Whenever this happened, nightmare feelings attacked him; he
experienced transitory, unreasoning fright and horror.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: just as there would have been heartlessness in leaving him alone
with them. Now that the pair had such perceptions in common it was
useless for them to pretend they didn't judge such people; but the
very judgement and the exchange of perceptions created another tie.
Morgan had never been so interesting as now that he himself was
made plainer by the sidelight of these confidences. What came out
in it most was the small fine passion of his pride. He had plenty
of that, Pemberton felt - so much that one might perhaps wisely
wish for it some early bruises. He would have liked his people to
have a spirit and had waked up to the sense of their perpetually
eating humble-pie. His mother would consume any amount, and his
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: transformation from invited guest to parasite and hanger-on; he could
not bring himself to quit dinners so excellently served for the
Spartan broth of a two-franc ordinary. Alas! alas! a shudder ran
through him at the mere thought of the great sacrifices which
independence required him to make. He felt that he was capable of
sinking to even lower depths for the sake of good living, if there
were no other way of enjoying the first and best of everything, of
guzzling (vulgar but expressive word) nice little dishes carefully
prepared. Pons lived like a bird, pilfering his meal, flying away when
he had taken his fill, singing a few notes by way of return; he took a
certain pleasure in the thought that he lived at the expense of
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