| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: witch.'
She grew grey as a blossom of the Judas tree, and shuddered. 'Be
it so,' she muttered. 'It is thy soul and not mine. Do with it as
thou wilt.' And she took from her girdle a little knife that had a
handle of green viper's skin, and gave it to him.
'What shall this serve me?' he asked of her, wondering.
She was silent for a few moments, and a look of terror came over
her face. Then she brushed her hair back from her forehead, and
smiling strangely she said to him, 'What men call the shadow of the
body is not the shadow of the body, but is the body of the soul.
Stand on the sea-shore with thy back to the moon, and cut away from
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: commits a murder in Paris, it is the executioner's duty, you
know, to lay hands on him and stretch him on the plank, where
murderers pay for their crimes with their heads. Then the
newspapers inform everyone, rich and poor, so that the former are
assured that they may sleep in peace, and the latter are warned
that they must be on the watch if they would live. Well, you
that are religious, and even a little of a bigot, may have masses
said for such a man's soul. You both belong to the same family,
but yours is the elder branch; and the elder branch may occupy
high places in peace and live happily and without cares. Want or
anger may drive your brother the convict to take a man's life;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: fact in meteorology better established - indeed, it is almost
the only one on which meteorologists are agreed - than that
the carriage of an umbrella produces desiccation of the air;
while if it be left at home, aqueous vapour is largely
produced, and is soon deposited in the form of rain. No
theory,' my friend continues, 'competent to explain this
hygrometric law has been given (as far as I am aware) by
Herschel, Dove, Glaisher, Tait, Buchan, or any other writer;
nor do I pretend to supply the defect. I venture, however,
to throw out the conjecture that it will be ultimately found
to belong to the same class of natural laws as that agreeable
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