| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: pourquoi est-ce que j'entends dans l'air ce battement d'ailes? Oh!
on dirait qu'il y a un oiseau, un grand oiseau noir, qui plane sur
la terrasse. Pourquoi est-ce que je ne peux pas le voir, cet
oiseau? Le battement de ses ailes est terrible. Le vent qui vient
de ses ailes est terrible. C'est un vent froid . . . Mais non, il
ne fait pas froid du tout. Au contraire, il fait tres chaud. Il
fait trop chaud. J'etouffe. Versez-moi l'eau sur les mains.
Donnez-moi de la neige e manger. Degrafez mon manteau. Vite, vite,
degrafez mon manteau . . . Non. Laissez-le. C'est ma couronne qui
me fait mal, ma couronne de roses. On dirait que ces fleurs sont
faites de feu. Elles ont brule mon front. [Il arrache de sa tete
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: with a smile that seemed almost foolish in its vanity.
"And come out a beggar in the end," said I, "if beggar be a strong
enough word for it."
"I would have you to observe, Mr. Mackellar," cried he, with a
sudden imperious heat, in which I could not but admire him, "that I
am scrupulously civil: copy me in that, and we shall be the better
friends."
Throughout this dialogue I had been incommoded by the observation
of Secundra Dass. Not one of us, since the first word, had made a
feint of eating: our eyes were in each other's faces - you might
say, in each other's bosoms; and those of the Indian troubled me
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: in the course of which implacable animosities are kindled between
the different classes of society. These passions survive the
victory, and traces of them may be observed in the midst of the
democratic confusion which ensues. Those members of the
community who were at the top of the late gradations of rank
cannot immediately forget their former greatness; they will long
regard themselves as aliens in the midst of the newly composed
society. They look upon all those whom this state of society has
made their equals as oppressors, whose destiny can excite no
sympathy; they have lost sight of their former equals, and feel
no longer bound by a common interest to their fate: each of them,
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