| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: turning to the poet, and, as she looked at him for the first time, it
seemed to strike her that he was singularly dressed.
"There is M. du Chatelet," exclaimed Lucien at that moment, and he
pointed a finger towards Mme. de Serizy's box, which the renovated
beau had just entered.
Mme. de Bargeton bit her lips with chagrin as she saw that gesture,
and saw besides the Marquise's ill-suppressed smile of contemptuous
astonishment. "Where does the young man come from?" her look said, and
Louise felt humbled through her love, one of the sharpest of all pangs
for a Frenchwoman, a mortification for which she cannot forgive her
lover.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Human Drift by Jack London: Hard work and excitement? Let the wind baffle and drop in a heavy
tide-way just as you are sailing your little sloop through a
narrow draw-bridge. Behold your sails, upon which you are
depending, flap with sudden emptiness, and then see the impish
wind, with a haul of eight points, fill your jib aback with a
gusty puff. Around she goes, and sweeps, not through the open
draw, but broadside on against the solid piles. Hear the roar of
the tide, sucking through the trestle. And hear and see your
pretty, fresh-painted boat crash against the piles. Feel her
stout little hull give to the impact. See the rail actually pinch
in. Hear your canvas tearing, and see the black, square-ended
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: be rendered by, "Excuse me; this kind of thing does not happen
every day."
Does it so seldom happen that a father's death surprises youth in
the full-blown splendor of life, in the midst of the mad riot of
an orgy? Death is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in
her disdain; but death is truer--Death has never forsaken any
man.
Don Juan closed the door of the banqueting-hall; and as he went
down the long gallery, through the cold and darkness, he strove
to assume an expression in keeping with the part he had to play;
he had thrown off his mirthful mood, as he had thrown down his
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