| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: Monster! O Prince, I went for Lancelot first,
The quest is Lancelot's: give him back the shield.'
Said Gareth laughing, 'An he fight for this,
Belike he wins it as the better man:
Thus--and not else!'
But Lancelot on him urged
All the devisings of their chivalry
When one might meet a mightier than himself;
How best to manage horse, lance, sword and shield,
And so fill up the gap where force might fail
With skill and fineness. Instant were his words.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: "Well," she said quietly, "whether it is your business or not, I
will tell you that we are *NOT happy."
I said nothing, for I saw that she had not finished.
She began slowly, walking up and down the room, her head a little
bent, and that slim, supple figure of hers swaying gently as she
walked. She stopped suddenly, and looked up at me.
"You don't know anything about me, do you?" she asked. "Where I
come from, who I was before I married John-- anything, in fact?
Well, I will tell you. I will make a father confessor of you.
You are kind, I think--yes, I am sure you are kind."
Somehow, I was not quite as elated as I might have been. I
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: Sundays, with very natural amiability, he accompanied her to church to
make up to her, as it were, for sometimes giving up vespers in favor
of his company; he could not at first fully enter into the strictness
of his wife's religious views. The theatres being impossible in summer
by reason of the heat, Granville had not even the opportunity of the
great success of a piece to give rise to the serious question of play-
going. And, in short, at the early stage of a union to which a man has
been led by a young girl's beauty, he can hardly be exacting as to his
amusements. Youth is greedy rather than dainty, and possession has a
charm in itself. How should he be keen to note coldness, dignity, and
reserve in the woman to whom he ascribes the excitement he himself
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