| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: woman issuing refreshed and joyous from a bath, rose above the murmur
of the rippling fringes as their flux and reflux marked a white line
along the shore. Hearing that note as it gushed from a soul, I fancied
I saw among the rocks the foot of an angel, who with outspread wings
cried out to me, "Thou shalt succeed!" I came down radiant, light-
hearted; I bounded like a pebble rolling down a rapid slope. When she
saw me, she said,--
"What is it?"
I did not answer; my eyes were moist. The night before, Pauline had
understood my sorrows, as she now understood my joy, with the magical
sensitiveness of a harp that obeys the variations of the atmosphere.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: that it will be all done extremely well."
Miss Crawford listened with submission, and said to herself,
"He is a well-bred man; he makes the best of it."
"I do not wish to influence Mr. Rushworth," he continued;
"but, had I a place to new fashion, I should not put
myself into the hands of an improver. I would rather
have an inferior degree of beauty, of my own choice,
and acquired progressively. I would rather abide by my own
blunders than by his."
"_You_ would know what you were about, of course;
but that would not suit _me_. I have no eye or
Mansfield Park |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: Gordon went on, more passionately, to Angela.
"He put me off my guard--I can't call it anything else.
I know I gave him a great chance--I encouraged him, urged him,
tempted him. But when once he had spoken, he should have stood
to it. He should n't have had two opinions--one for me,
and one for himself! He put me off my guard. It was because I
still resisted him that I went to you again, that last time.
But I was still afraid of you, and in my heart I believed him.
As I say, I always believed him; it was his great influence
upon me. He is the cleverest, the most intelligent, the most
brilliant of men. I don't think that a grain less than I
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