| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: "Come, give me the wine!" he said, in the tone of a man whose patience
had come to an end.
Convinced that though this compliance would do no harm it could do no
good, Madame Cardinal poured out half a glass, and while she gave it
with one hand to the sick man, with the other she raised him to a
sitting posture that he might drink it.
With his fleshless, eager fingers Toupillier clutched the glass,
emptied it at a gulp, and exclaimed:--
"Ah! that's a fine drop, that is! though you've watered it."
"You mustn't say that, uncle; I went and bought it myself of Pere
Legrelu, and I've given it you quite pure. But you let me simmer the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Aesop's Fables by Aesop: The Woodman and the Serpent
One wintry day a Woodman was tramping home from his work when
he saw something black lying on the snow. When he came closer he
saw it was a Serpent to all appearance dead. But he took it up
and put it in his bosom to warm while he hurried home. As soon as
he got indoors he put the Serpent down on the hearth before the
fire. The children watched it and saw it slowly come to life
again. Then one of them stooped down to stroke it, but thc
Serpent raised its head and put out its fangs and was about to
sting the child to death. So the Woodman seized his axe, and with
one stroke cut the Serpent in two. "Ah," said he,
Aesop's Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: fairly to the wall. She had told me, bit by bit, under pressure,
a great deal; but a small shifty spot on the wrong side of it
all still sometimes brushed my brow like the wing of a bat;
and I remember how on this occasion--for the sleeping house and
the concentration alike of our danger and our watch seemed to help--
I felt the importance of giving the last jerk to the curtain.
"I don't believe anything so horrible," I recollect saying;
"no, let us put it definitely, my dear, that I don't. But if I did,
you know, there's a thing I should require now, just without sparing
you the least bit more--oh, not a scrap, come!--to get out of you.
What was it you had in mind when, in our distress, before Miles came back,
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