| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: self-contradiction, and had little more respect for consistency
of statement than a washerwoman has for wisps of vapor, which
made Ann Veronica critical and hostile at their first encounter
in Morningside Park, became at last with constant association the
secret of Miss Miniver's growing influence. The brain tires of
resistance, and when it meets again and again, incoherently
active, the same phrases, the same ideas that it has already
slain, exposed and dissected and buried, it becomes less and less
energetic to repeat the operation. There must be something, one
feels, in ideas that achieve persistently a successful
resurrection. What Miss Miniver would have called the Higher
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: nice--something not a bit horrid or vulgar."
She had by this time, she could see, produced a great effect on
him; but she would have spoken the truth to herself had she at the
same moment declared that she didn't in the least care: all the
more that the effect must be one of extreme perplexity. What, in
it all, was visibly clear for him, none the less, was that he was
tremendously glad he had met her. She held him, and he was
astonished at the force of it; he was intent, immensely
considerate. His elbow was on the back of the seat, and his head,
with the pot-hat pushed quite back, in a boyish way, so that she
really saw almost for the first time his forehead and hair, rested
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: inkbottle at his head, the man from Picardy, a sickly celibate, made
plans of campaign, directed battles, armed princes, and roused whole
peoples by sowing republican doctrines in the hearts of the burghers--
recouping his continual defeats in the field by fresh progress in the
mind of the nations.
The Cardinal de Lorraine and the Duc de Guise, like Philip the Second
and the Duke of Alba, knew where and when the monarchy was threatened,
and how close the alliance ought to be between Catholicism and
Royalty. Charles the Fifth, drunk with the wine of Charlemagne's cup,
believing too blindly in the strength of his monarchy, and confident
of sharing the world with Suleiman, did not at first feel the blow at
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