| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: actions, others by their ideas; and perhaps the shortest way of
defining Flamel is to say that his well-known leniency of view was
vaguely divined to include himself. Simple minds may have
resented the discovery that his opinions were based on his
perceptions; but there was certainly no more definite charge
against him than that implied in the doubt as to how he would
behave in an emergency, and his company was looked upon as one of
those mildly unwholesome dissipations to which the prudent may
occasionally yield. It now offered itself to Glennard as an easy
escape from the obsession of moral problems, which somehow could
no more be worn in Flamel's presence than a surplice in the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: "I have been looking at furnished rooms all over the place,
and it seems impossible to find any with a garden attached.
Naturally in a place like Venice gardens are rare. It's absurd
if you like, for a man, but I can't live without flowers."
"There are none to speak of down there." She came nearer to me, as if,
though she mistrusted me, I had drawn her by an invisible thread.
I went on again, and she continued as she followed me: "We have a few,
but they are very common. It costs too much to cultivate them;
one has to have a man."
"Why shouldn't I be the man?" I asked. "I'll work without wages;
or rather I'll put in a gardener. You shall have the sweetest
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: reproach. Thirteen years still lie before me as a pretty woman, and I
am determined to be loved on the last day of the thirteenth even more
fondly than on the morrow of our mysterious nuptials. This time no
cutting words shall mar my lowly, grateful content. I will take the
part of servant, since that of mistress throve so ill with me before.
Ah! Renee, if Gaston has sounded, as I have, the heights and depths of
love, my happiness is assured! Nature at the chalet wears her fairest
face. The woods are charming; each step opens up to you some fresh
vista of cool greenery, which delights the soul by the sweet thoughts
it wakens. They breathe of love. If only this be not the gorgeous
theatre dressed by my hand for my own martyrdom!
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