| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: "I get the subject to pass the fingers of his right through his hair,
so as to get a little coating of the natural oil on them,
and then press the balls of them on the glass. A fine an delicate
print of the lines in the skin results, and is permanent,
if it doesn't come in contact with something able to rub it off.
You begin, Tom."
"Why, I think you took my finger marks once or twice before."
"Yes, but you were a little boy the last time, only about
twelve years old."
"That's so. Of course, I've changed entirely since then,
and variety is what the crowned heads want, I guess."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: side of three hundred years ago, you are all right; but the minute
you get back of Elizabeth's time the language begins to fog up, and
the further back you go the foggier it gets. I had some talk with
one Langland and a man by the name of Chaucer - old-time poets -
but it was no use, I couldn't quite understand them, and they
couldn't quite understand me. I have had letters from them since,
but it is such broken English I can't make it out. Back of those
men's time the English are just simply foreigners, nothing more,
nothing less; they talk Danish, German, Norman French, and
sometimes a mixture of all three; back of THEM, they talk Latin,
and ancient British, Irish, and Gaelic; and then back of these come
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: breath of wind. For the substantial world, with its prospect of
avenues leading on and on to the invisible distance, had slipped from
him, since Katharine was engaged. Now all his life was visible, and
the straight, meager path had its ending soon enough. Katharine was
engaged, and she had deceived him, too. He felt for corners of his
being untouched by his disaster; but there was no limit to the flood
of damage; not one of his possessions was safe now. Katharine had
deceived him; she had mixed herself with every thought of his, and
reft of her they seemed false thoughts which he would blush to think
again. His life seemed immeasurably impoverished.
He sat himself down, in spite of the chilly fog which obscured the
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