| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: her happiness, and she is not allowed to throw the dice; she risks
her all, and is forced to be a mere spectator. I have the right,
the will, the power to make my own unhappiness, and I use them, as
did my mother, who, won by beauty and led by instinct, married the
most generous, the most liberal, the most loving of men. I know
that you are free, a poet, and noble-looking. Be sure that I
should not have chosen one of your brothers in Apollo who was
already married. If my mother was won by beauty, which is perhaps
the spirit of form, why should I not be attracted by the spirit
and the form united? Shall I not know you better by studying you
in this correspondence than I could through the vulgar experience
Modeste Mignon |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Master and Man by Leo Tolstoy: which the wind now wrapped closely about him and now almost
tore off, started to feel about in the snow, going first to one
side and then to the other. Three or four times he was
completely lost to sight. At last he returned and took the
reins from Vasili Andreevich's hand.
'We must go to the right,' he said sternly and peremptorily, as
he turned the horse.
'Well, if it's to the right, go to the right,' said Vasili
Andreevich, yielding up the reins to Nikita and thrusting his
freezing hands into his sleeves.
Nikita did not reply.
Master and Man |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: under water and the wavelets lapping the companion-way combing,
the sturdy little craft shivered and shook herself and pointed her
masts once more to the zenith.
There is never lack of exercise in small-boat sailing, and the
hard work is not only part of the fun of it, but it beats the
doctors. San Francisco Bay is no mill pond. It is a large and
draughty and variegated piece of water. I remember, one winter
evening, trying to enter the mouth of the Sacramento. There was a
freshet on the river, the flood tide from the bay had been beaten
back into a strong ebb, and the lusty west wind died down with the
sun. It was just sunset, and with a fair to middling breeze, dead
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