| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: "I must say," said Mrs. Westgate, "that it is no thanks to him if you are."
And she went on to explain, while she continued that slow-paced
promenade which enabled her well-adjusted skirts to display themselves
so advantageously, that unfortunately in America there was no leisure class.
It was Lord Lambeth's theory, freely propounded when the young men
were together, that Percy Beaumont was having a very good time with
Mrs. Westgate, and that, under the pretext of meeting for the purpose
of animated discussion, they were indulging in practices that imparted
a shade of hypocrisy to the lady's regret for her husband's absence.
"I assure you we are always discussing and differing,"
said Percy Beaumont. "She is awfully argumentative.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne: equivalent to a sentence of death.
Marfa knew it, but she knew also that no torture would
make her speak. She was sacrificing her life.
Marfa, seized by two soldiers, was forced on her knees
on the ground. Her dress torn off left her back bare. A
saber was placed before her breast, at a few inches' distance
only. Directly she bent beneath her suffering, her breast
would be pierced by the sharp steel.
The Tartar drew himself up. He waited. "Begin!"
said Ogareff. The whip whistled in the air.
But before it fell a powerful hand stopped the Tartar's
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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: themselves to two--either the children are well, or they are not. For
me, in this solitary grange, it is no exaggeration to say that hours
become minutes, or minutes hours, according to the children's health.
If I have some delightful hours, it is when they are asleep and I am
no longer needed to rock the one or soothe the other with stories.
When I have them sleeping by my side, I say to myself, "Nothing can go
wrong now." The fact is, my sweet, every mother spends her time, so
soon as her children are out of her sight, in imagining dangers for
them. Perhaps it is Armand seizing the razors to play with, or his
coat taking fire, or a snake biting him, or he might tumble in running
and start an abscess on his head, or he might drown himself in a pond.
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