| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: the two women--"You are making as much of him as if he were bringing
you any amount of money!"
"And what has my brother done that we should not make much of him?"
cried Eve, jealously screening Lucien.
Nevertheless, when the first expansion was over, shades of truth came
out. It was not long before Lucien felt the difference between the old
affection and the new. Eve respected David from the depths of her
heart; Lucien was beloved for his own sake, as we love a mistress
still in spite of the disasters she causes. Esteem, the very
foundation on which affection is based, is the solid stuff to which
affection owes I know not what of certainty and security by which we
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: sweetness of his nature. The two entered into a competition of
generosity, for which I can recall no parallel in history, each
waiving the throne for himself, each pressing it upon his rival;
and they embraced at last a compromise the terms of which seem to
have been always obscure and are now disputed. Laupepa at least
resumed his style of King of Samoa; Mataafa retained much of the
conduct of affairs, and continued to receive much of the attendance
and respect befitting royalty; and the two Malietoas, with so many
causes of disunion, dwelt and met together in the same town like
kinsmen. It was so, that I first saw them; so, in a house set
about with sentries - for there was still a haunting fear of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: Only, you know, the form and the way in your case were to have
been--well, something so exceptional and, as one may say, so
particularly YOUR own."
Something in this made him look at her with suspicion. "You say
'were to HAVE been,' as if in your heart you had begun to doubt."
"Oh!" she vaguely protested.
"As if you believed," he went on, "that nothing will now take
place."
She shook her head slowly but rather inscrutably. "You're far from
my thought."
He continued to look at her. "What then is the matter with you?"
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