| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: was playing very hard. We were on the edge of the lake, and, as we
had lately begun geography, the lake was the Sea of Azof.
Suddenly, in these circumstances, I became aware that, on the
other side of the Sea of Azof, we had an interested spectator.
The way this knowledge gathered in me was the strangest thing
in the world--the strangest, that is, except the very much
stranger in which it quickly merged itself. I had sat down with
a piece of work--for I was something or other that could sit--
on the old stone bench which overlooked the pond; and in this
position I began to take in with certitude, and yet without
direct vision, the presence, at a distance, of a third person.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: Kellermann, with an eye upon Fritz, who was engaged in counting Elsa's
fingers with passionate fervour--"and bring with you your young wife, Herr
Langen, and watch, perhaps, your little child playing with--" She turned
towards Karl, who had rooted an old illustrated paper out of the receptacle
and was spelling over an advertisement for the enlargement of Beautiful
Breasts.
The sentence remained unfinished. We decided to move on. As we plunged
more deeply into the wood our spirits rose--reaching a point where they
burst into song--on the part of the three men--"O Welt, wie bist du
wunderbar!"--the lower part of which was piercingly sustained by Herr
Langen, who attempted quite unsuccessfully to infuse satire into it in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Start in Life by Honore de Balzac: coach, of the plan laid by the notary at Beaumont and by you and by
himself in relation to Les Moulineaux. If you have been, as you say,
to Monsieur Margueron, it was to tell him to feign illness. He is so
little ill that he is coming here to dinner this evening. Now,
monsieur, I could pardon you having made two hundred and fifty
thousand francs out of your situation in seventeen years,--I can
understand that. You might each time have asked me for what you took,
and I would have given it to you; but let that pass. You have been,
notwithstanding this disloyalty, better than others, as I believe. But
that you, who knew my toil for our country, for France, you have seen
me giving night after night to the Emperor's service, and working
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