| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: in dishonour, about the smoky Midlands, almost as the injured Lear
wandered on the storm-lashed heath. His room, upstairs, had been
lately done up (I could hear the crackle of the new chintz) and the
difference only made his smirches and bruises, his splendid tainted
genius, the more tragic. If he wasn't barefoot in the mire he was
sure to be unconventionally shod. These were the things Adelaide
and I, who were old enough friends to stare at each other in
silence, talked about when we didn't speak. When we spoke it was
only about the brilliant girl George Gravener was to marry and whom
he had brought out the other Sunday. I could see that this
presentation had been happy, for Mrs. Mulville commemorated it
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bucolics by Virgil: Among the willows, 'neath the limber vine,
Reclining would my love have lain with me,
Phyllis plucked garlands, or Amyntas sung.
Here are cool springs, soft mead and grove, Lycoris;
Here might our lives with time have worn away.
But me mad love of the stern war-god holds
Armed amid weapons and opposing foes.
Whilst thou- Ah! might I but believe it not!-
Alone without me, and from home afar,
Look'st upon Alpine snows and frozen Rhine.
Ah! may the frost not hurt thee, may the sharp
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: rage. 'You would have her sell herself; sell herself to you to
save me. And you would have me stand by and see the thing done.
No, sir, never; never, though I go to the wheel. I will die a
gentleman, if I have lived a fool.'
'I think that you will do the one as certainly as you have done
the other,' I retorted in my exasperation. And yet I admired
him.
'Oh, I am not quite a fool!' he cried, scowling at me. 'I have
used my eyes.'
'Then be good enough to favour me with your ears!' I answered
drily. 'For just a moment. And listen when I say that no such
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