| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: MENTONE, NOVEMBER 13, 1873.
MY DEAR MOTHER, - The PLACE is not where I thought; it is about
where the old Post Office was. The Hotel de Londres is no more an
hotel. I have found a charming room in the Hotel du Pavillon, just
across the road from the Prince's Villa; it has one window to the
south and one to the east, with a superb view of Mentone and the
hills, to which I move this afternoon. In the old great PLACE
there is a kiosque for the sale of newspapers; a string of
omnibuses (perhaps thirty) go up and down under the plane-trees of
the Turin Road on the occasion of each train; the Promenade has
crossed both streams, and bids fair to reach the Cap St. Martin.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: bedroom, a grave and unbending citizen.
There was a moment of gorgeous abandon, a flash of melodrama such as he found
in traffic-driving, when he laid out a clean collar, discovered that it was
frayed in front, and tore it up with a magnificent yeeeeeing sound.
Most important of all was the preparation of his bed and the sleeping-porch.
It is not known whether he enjoyed his sleeping-porch because of the fresh air
or because it was the standard thing to have a sleeping-porch.
Just as he was an Elk, a Booster, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce,
just as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determined his every religious
belief and the senators who controlled the Republican Party decided in little
smoky rooms in Washington what he should think about disarmament, tariff, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: looked at each other, and all three said with a solemn air the word of
the abbe in Alfred de Musset's "Marrons du feu" (which had then just
appeared),--"Sad!"
"Your mother will pay if you write a clever letter," said Rastignac.
"Yes, but afterwards?" cried de Marsay.
"If you had merely been put in the fiacre," said Lucien, "the
government would find you a place in diplomacy, but Saint-Pelagie
isn't the antechamber of an embassy."
"You are not strong enough for Parisian life," said Rastignac.
"Let us consider the matter," said de Marsay, looking Savinien over as
a jockey examines a horse. "You have fine blue eyes, well opened, a
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