| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: the stoves, since they and their children are dying of cold
because there is nothing on which they can heat up water or
boil kasha for the children; and they, too, will be quite right.
But in spite of all these just demands, which arrive in
thousands from all sides, it is impossible to forget the most
important of all, that the foundation is shattered and that the
building is threatened with a collapse which will bury all the
inhabitants of the house together, and that, therefore, the
only immediate task is the strengthening of the foundation
and the walls. Extraordinary firmness, extraordinary
courage is necessary, not only not to listen to the cries and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Alkahest by Honore de Balzac: for fifteen years without a cloud, diffusing itself like a vivid light
into every nook and detail of her life. Most men have inequalities of
character which produce discord, and deprive their households of the
harmony which is the ideal of a home; the majority are blemished with
some littleness or meanness, and meanness of any kind begets
bickering. One man is honorable and diligent, but hard and crabbed;
another kindly, but obstinate; this one loves his wife, yet his will
is arbitrary and uncertain; that other, preoccupied by ambition, pays
off his affections as he would a debt, bestows the luxuries of wealth
but deprives the daily life of happiness,--in short, the average man
of social life is essentially incomplete, without being signally to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: mouth of Socrates, who describes a conversation which had taken place
between himself and the great Sophist at the house of Callias--'the man who
had spent more upon the Sophists than all the rest of the world'--and in
which the learned Hippias and the grammarian Prodicus had also shared, as
well as Alcibiades and Critias, both of whom said a few words--in the
presence of a distinguished company consisting of disciples of Protagoras
and of leading Athenians belonging to the Socratic circle. The dialogue
commences with a request on the part of Hippocrates that Socrates would
introduce him to the celebrated teacher. He has come before the dawn had
risen--so fervid is his zeal. Socrates moderates his excitement and
advises him to find out 'what Protagoras will make of him,' before he
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