| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: of his mad anger! What bitter reflections she had made before she
brought herself to admit that her husband was a wreck! What horrible
calamities had come of her bearing children! What anguish she felt at
the sight of those infants born almost dead! With what courage had she
said in her heart: "I will breathe the breath of life into them; I
will bear them anew day by day!" Then conceive the bitterness of
finding her greatest obstacle in the heart and hand from which a wife
should draw her greatest succor! She saw the untold disaster that
threatened him. As each difficulty was conquered, new deserts opened
before her, until the day when she thoroughly understood her husband's
condition, the constitution of her children, and the character of the
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Faith of Men by Jack London: in the youth of the world when cavemen rounded up the kill with
hand-axe of stone. Such would have served me as well. Now is it
not a fact that man can outwalk the dog or horse? That he can wear
them out with the intelligence of his endurance?"
I nodded.
"Well?"
The light broke in on me, and I bade him continue.
"My valley was perhaps five miles around. The mouth was closed.
There was no way to get out. A timid beast was that bull mammoth,
and I had him at my mercy. I got on his heels again hollered like
a fiend, pelted him with cobbles, and raced him around the valley
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: "Those things were THERE." And she pointed to a small,
low trunk which stood under a sofa where there was just room for it.
It appeared to be a queer, superannuated coffer, of painted wood,
with elaborate handles and shriveled straps and with the color
(it had last been endued with a coat of light green) much rubbed off.
It evidently had traveled with Juliana in the olden time--
in the days of her adventures, which it had shared.
It would have made a strange figure arriving at a modern hotel.
"WERE there--they aren't now?" I asked, startled by
Miss Tita's implication.
She was going to answer, but at that moment the doctor came in--
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