| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: blue linen, with her embroidery in her hands, did
not kiss her sister. She was not given to demon-
strations, but she smiled complacently at her.
"We are all very glad to have dear Annie back,
I am sure," said she, "and now that it is all over,
we all feel that it has been for the best, although it
has seemed very singular, and made, I fear, con-
siderable talk. But, of course, when one person in
a family insists upon taking everything upon her-
self, it must result in making the others selfish."
Annie did not hear one word that Imogen said.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: process; we have reached a time when the verb and the noun are nearly
perfected, though in no language did they completely perfect themselves,
because for some unknown reason the motive powers of languages seem to have
ceased when they were on the eve of completion: they became fixed or
crystallized in an imperfect form either from the influence of writing and
literature, or because no further differentiation of them was required for
the intelligibility of language. So not without admixture and confusion
and displacement and contamination of sounds and the meanings of words, a
lower stage of language passes into a higher. Thus far we can see and no
further. When we ask the reason why this principle of analogy prevails in
all the vast domain of language, there is no answer to the question; or no
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: breeze. I heard the RAP, RAP, RAP of a pipe on the gunwale, and the
quick scratch of a match on the under side of the thwart.
"What are you doing, Ferdinand?"
"I go to light the pipe, m'sieu'."
"Is the story finished?"
"But yes--but no--I know not, m'sieu'. As you will."
"But what did old Girard say when his daughter broke her engagement
and married a man whose eyes were spoiled?"
"He said that Leclere could see well enough to work with him in the
store."
"And what did Vaillantcoeur say when he lost his girl?"
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