| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: and as she spoke I noticed a rare change in her.
She was different from what she had been the evening before--
less natural, less quiet. She had been crying the day before and
she was not crying now, and yet she struck me as less confident.
It was as if something had happened to her during the night,
or at least as if she had thought of something that troubled her--
something in particular that affected her relations
with me, made them more embarrassing and complicated.
Had she simply perceived that her aunt's not being there now
altered my position?
"I mean about our papers. ARE there any? You must know now."
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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: Clustered, receded, streamed, advanced.
Her dress was purple, her slippers were golden,
Her eyes were blue; and a purple orchid
Opened its golden heart on her breast . . .
She leaned to the surly languor of lazy music,
Leaned on her partner's arm to rest.
The violins were weaving a weft of silver,
The horns were weaving a lustrous brede of gold,
And time was caught in a glistening pattern,
Time, too elusive to hold . . .
Shadows of leaves fell over her face,--and sunlight:
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: staggered.
The next night was one of those that stand out so vividly, for no
reason that one can identify, in one's memory. We were dining with
the Harbottles, a small party, for a tourist they had with them.
Judy and I and Somers and the traveller had drifted out into the
veranda, where the scent of Japanese lilies came and went on the
spring wind to trouble the souls of any taken unawares. There was a
brightness beyond the foothills where the moon was coming, and I
remember how one tall clump swayed out against it, and seemed in
passionate perfume to lay a burden on the breast. Judy moved away
from it and sat clasping her knees on the edge of the veranda.
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