| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: water.
" 'At last, monsieur, one day, or rather one morning, we did not find
him in his room; he had not come back. By hunting through his things,
I found a written paper in the drawer of his table, with fifty pieces
of Spanish gold of the kind they call doubloons, worth about five
thousand francs; and in a little sealed box ten thousand francs worth
of diamonds. The paper said that in case he should not return, he left
us this money and these diamonds in trust to found masses to thank God
for his escape and for his salvation.
" 'At that time I still had my husband, who ran off in search of him.
And this is the queer part of the story: he brought back the
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: Once upon a time a wise and thoughtful craftsman made a new
electric adding machine. It was very complex with many gears and
levers and wheels, and it did amazing things, always adding up the
numbers correctly. So the craftsman sold it to a businessman for
many thousands of dollars. All the parts inside the new adding
machine felt good about being so valuable. They worked hard and
happily all day, and often talked about how useful they were to
the businessman.
But one day a spring noticed a little nut just sitting on
the end of a shaft. The spring pulled at the lever he was
attached to and pointed. Soon the whole works knew. "You lazy
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: drew near his heart was inflamed by the most noble sentiment
of triumph. Never had he seen the garden so crowded;
children, still stumbling in the impotence of youth, ran to
and fro, shouting and playing, round the pedestal; an old,
sick pensioner sat upon the nearest bench, a medal on his
breast, a stick with which he walked (for he was disabled by
wounds) reclining on his knee. Guilty England would thus be
stabbed in the most delicate quarters; the moment had,
indeed, been well selected; and M'Guire, with a radiant
provision of the event, drew merrily nearer. Suddenly his
eye alighted on the burly form of a policeman, standing hard
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