| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: understand. It is I who am in the wrong; for I had no business to
conceal my name and lead on these gentleman to speak of me. And it
is I who have to beg of you that you will keep my secret and not
betray the discourtesy of which I was guilty. As for any fear of
me, your friends are safe in Gerolstein; and even in my own
territory, you must be well aware I have no power.'
' O, sir,' she said, curtsying, 'I would not say that: the huntsmen
would all die for you.'
'Happy Prince!' said Otto. 'But although you are too courteous to
avow the knowledge, you have had many opportunities of learning that
I am a vain show. Only last night we heard it very clearly stated.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: she knew the worst and the best, she had accepted herself.
It had not been, indeed, without a struggle. As a young girl she
had spent hours with her back to her mirror, crying her eyes out;
and later she had from desperation and bravado adopted
the habit of proclaiming herself the most ill-favored of women,
in order that she might--as in common politeness was inevitable--
be contradicted and reassured. It was since she had come to live
in Europe that she had begun to take the matter philosophically.
Her observation, acutely exercised here, had suggested to her that
a woman's first duty is not to be beautiful, but to be pleasing,
and she encountered so many women who pleased without beauty
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: stayed with us a month. I saw a great deal of him. I don't know if he
liked me; I know he liked my singing, and we rode together--I liked him
more than any man I have ever seen. Oh, you know it isn't true that a
woman can only like a man when he likes her; and I thought, perhaps, he
liked me a little. Since we have been in town we have asked, but he has
never come to see us. Perhaps people have been saying something to him
about me. You know him, you are always meeting him, couldn't you say or do
anything for me?" She looked up with her lips white and drawn. "I feel
sometimes as if I were going mad! Oh, it is so terrible to be a woman!"
The woman looked down at her. "Now I hear he likes another woman. I don't
know who she is, but they say she is so clever, and writes. Oh, it is so
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