| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: own."
The next morning a corporal's guard came to fetch the young surgeon at
nine o'clock. Hearing the noise made by the soldiers, I stationed
myself at my window. As the prisoner crossed the courtyard, he cast
his eyes up to me. Never shall I forget that look, full of thoughts,
presentiments, resignation, and I know not what sad, melancholy grace.
It was, as it were, a silent but intelligible last will by which a man
bequeathed his lost existence to his only friend. The night must have
been very hard, very solitary for him; and yet, perhaps, the pallor of
his face expressed a stoicism gathered from some new sense of self-
respect. Perhaps he felt that his remorse had purified him, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: You did not see how many times she hurried
To lean from certain windows, vainly hoping,
Passionate still for beauty, remembered spring.
You did not know how long she clung to music,
You did not hear her sing.
Did she, then, make the choice, and step out bravely
From sound to silence--close, herself, those windows?
Or was it true, instead,
That darkness moved,--for once,--and so possessed her? . . .
We'll never know, you say, for she is dead.
VII. PORCELAIN
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Fisherman's Luck by Henry van Dyke: September to the Upper Dam at Rangeley.
She went reluctant. She arrived disgusted. She stayed incredulous.
She returned-- Wait a bit, and you shall hear how she returned.
The Upper Dam at Rangeley is the place, of all others in the world,
where the lunacy of angling may be seen in its incurable stage.
There is a cosy little inn, called a camp, at the foot of a big
lake. In front of the inn is a huge dam of gray stone, over which
the river plunges into a great oval pool, where the trout assemble
in the early fall to perpetuate their race. From the tenth of
September to the thirtieth, there is not an hour of the day or night
when there are no boats floating on that pool, and no anglers
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