| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: of his projects, the submission of the Essenians to the King. These
poor people, clad only in linen, untameable in spite of severe
treatment, endowed with the power to divine the future by reading the
stars, had succeeded in commanding a certain degree of respect.
"What is the important matter thou wouldst communicate to me?" Antipas
inquired, with sudden recollection.
Before Phanuel could reply, a Negro entered the room in great haste.
He was covered with dust, and panted so violently that he could
scarcely utter the single word:
"Vitellus!"
"Has he arrived?" asked the tetrarch.
Herodias |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: an English University that he may have his prejudices rubbed
off, you might send him to Edinburgh that he may have them
ingrained - rendered indelible - fostered by sympathy into
living principles of his spirit. And the reason of it is
quite plain. From this absence of University feeling it
comes that a man's friendships are always the direct and
immediate results of these very prejudices. A common
weakness is the best master of ceremonies in our quadrangle:
a mutual vice is the readiest introduction. The studious
associate with the studious alone - the dandies with the
dandies. There is nothing to force them to rub shoulders
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: Juan himself, or Dona Elvira possessed more discretion or more
virtue than Spanish wives are usually credited with, Don Juan was
compelled to spend his declining years beneath his own roof, with
no more scandal under it than if he had been an ancient country
parson. Occasionally he would take wife and son to task for
negligence in the duties of religion, peremptorily insisting that
they should carry out to the letter the obligations imposed upon
the flock by the Court of Rome. Indeed, he was never so well
pleased as when he had set the courtly Abbot discussing some case
of conscience with Dona Elvira and Felipe.
At length, however, despite the prodigious care that the great
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