| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: never been quite sure what--perhaps reversion to the native animal
absorbed in his meat, perhaps a little from every guest's uneasiness lest
he drink his coffee wrong or stumble in the accepted uses of the fork.
Indeed, a diffident, uncleansed youth nearest Miss Buckner presently
wiped his mouth upon the cloth; and Mr. McLean, knowing better than that,
eyed him for this conduct in the presence of a lady. The lively strength
of the butter must, I think, have reached all in the room; at any rate,
the table-cloth lad, troubled by Mr. McLean's eye, now relieved the
general silence by observing, chattily:
"Say, friends, that butter ain't in no trance."
"If it's too rich for you," croaked the enraged proprietor, "use
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from My Aunt Margaret's Mirror by Walter Scott: the military character, just enough to exalt, but not render
pedantic, his qualities as a BEAU GARCON, was necessary to
maintain possession of the elevated situation which he held in
the ranks of fashion.
Sir Philip's resolution threw his wife into agonies of terror; by
which the worthy baronet was so much annoyed, that, contrary to
his wont, he took some trouble to soothe her apprehensions, and
once more brought her to shed tears, in which sorrow was not
altogether unmingled with pleasure. Lady Bothwell asked, as a
favour, Sir Philip's permission to receive her sister and her
family into her own house during his absence on the Continent.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: had time to begin to think I was finer than was perceived by the
patronising; but when I take the little measure of my course (a
fidgety habit, for it's none of the longest yet) I count my real
start from the evening George Corvick, breathless and worried, came
in to ask me a service. He had done more things than I, and earned
more pence, though there were chances for cleverness I thought he
sometimes missed. I could only however that evening declare to him
that he never missed one for kindness. There was almost rapture in
hearing it proposed to me to prepare for THE MIDDLE, the organ of
our lucubrations, so called from the position in the week of its
day of appearance, an article for which he had made himself
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