| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: nobility of soul, the springs of which had been lowered by experience
until the cruel teachings of life had driven it back into the farthest
recesses of this most singular human being. He was certainly not an
ordinary miser; and his passion covered, no doubt, extreme enjoyments
and secret conceptions.
"What is the present rate of Venetian sequins?" he said abruptly to
his future apprentice.
"Three-quarters at Brussels; one in Ghent."
"What is the freight on the Scheldt?"
"Three sous parisis."
"Any news at Ghent?"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: had sunk to a perfect calm. Pursuing its inverted course, the sun
rose and set with undeviating regularity; and the days and nights
were still divided into periods of precisely six hours each--
a sure proof that the sun remained close to the new equator
which manifestly passed through Gourbi Island.
Meanwhile the temperature was steadily increasing. The captain kept
his thermometer close at hand where he could repeatedly consult it,
and on the 15th he found that it registered 50 degrees centigrade
in the shade.
No attempt had been made to rebuild the gourbi, but the captain
and Ben Zoof managed to make up quarters sufficiently comfortable
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: any possible bitterness of feeling against the world.
I am completely penniless, and absolutely homeless. Yet there are
worse things in the world than that. I am quite candid when I say
that rather than go out from this prison with bitterness in my
heart against the world, I would gladly and readily beg my bread
from door to door. If I got nothing from the house of the rich I
would get something at the house of the poor. Those who have much
are often greedy; those who have little always share. I would not
a bit mind sleeping in the cool grass in summer, and when winter
came on sheltering myself by the warm close-thatched rick, or under
the penthouse of a great barn, provided I had love in my heart.
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