| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: How young the grandpapas have grown,
That BUT FOR THIS our souls were free,
And BUT FOR THAT our lives were blest;
That in some season yet to be
Our cares will leave us time to rest.
Whene'er we groan with ache or pain,
Some common ailment of the race, -
Though doctors think the matter plain, -
That ours is "a peculiar case."
That when like babes with fingers burned
We count one bitter maxim more,
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: little sharp stampings and jerkings: she made the crisp postal-
orders fairly snap while she breathed to herself "It's the last
day--the last day!" The last day of what? She couldn't have told.
All she knew now was that if she WERE out of the cage she wouldn't
in the least have minded, this time, its not yet being dark. She
would have gone straight toward Park Chambers and have hung about
there till no matter when. She would have waited, stayed, rung,
asked, have gone in, sat on the stairs. What the day was the last
of was probably, to her strained inner sense, the group of golden
ones, of any occasion for seeing the hazy sunshine slant at that
angle into the smelly shop, of any range of chances for his wishing
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: He never discussed personalities with his men.
"Well, I should say so--known her for years. Best woman on top of
Staten Island. Does she work for you?"
"Yes, and has for some years; but I must confess I never knew
Grogan was a woman until I found her on the dock a few weeks ago,
handling a cargo. She works like a machine. How long has she
been a widow?"
"Well, come to think of it, I don't know that she is a widow.
There's some mystery about the old man, but I never knew what.
But that don't count; she's good enough as she is, and a hustler,
too."
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