| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Options by O. Henry: now she would be moving slowly and gracefully to the strains of that
waltz, held closely by West-Pointers or city commuters, while he, who
had read in her eyes things that had recompensed him for ten lost
years of life, moped like some wild animal in its mountain den. Why
should--"
"Damn it," said the hermit, suddenly, "I'll do it!"
He threw down his Marcus Aurelius and threw off his gunny-sack toga.
he dragged a dust-covered trunk from a corner of the cave, and with
difficulty wrenched open its lid.
Candles he had in plenty, and the cave was soon aglow. Clothes--ten
years old in cut--scissors, razors, hats, shoes, all his discarded
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: substance, a being without life, or life without action. She was under
the spell of that timid curiosity which impels women to seek perilous
excitement, to gaze at chained tigers and boa-constrictors, shuddering
all the while because the barriers between them are so weak. Although
the little old man's back was bent like a day-laborer's, it was easy
to see that he must formerly have been of medium height. His excessive
thinness, the slenderness of his limbs, proved that he had always been
of slight build. He wore black silk breeches which hung about his
fleshless thighs in folds, like a lowered veil. An anatomist would
instinctively have recognized the symptoms of consumption in its
advanced stages, at sight of the tiny legs which served to support
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: with a smile, that he had not yet seen her, but that she had been
represented to him as a most dangerous person. This expression
so excited my sympathy, that I urged a thousand anxious arguments
in favour of my poor mistress, and I could not restrain even from
shedding tears.
He desired them to conduct me back to my chamber. `Love! love!'
cried this grave magistrate as I went out, `thou art never to be
reconciled with discretion!'
"I had been occupied with the most melancholy reflections, and
was thinking of the conversation I had had with the
lieutenant-general of police, when I heard my door open. It was
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