| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: as her settling with me goes it would be impossible moreover here;
she wants naturally enough a much wider field. She must live in
London--her game is there. So she takes the line of adoring me, of
saying she can never forget that I was devoted to her mother--which
I wouldn't for the world have been--and of giving me a wide berth.
I think she positively dislikes to look at me. It's all right;
there's no obligation; though people in general can't take their
eyes off me."
"I see that at this moment," I replied. "But what does it matter
where or how, for the present, she lives? She'll marry infallibly,
marry early, and everything then will change."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: chief questions of life. But this stage will pass. I am sure of
it. When the time comes, believe me, you will find the truth in
the teachings of the Gospel. I am dying peacefully simply because
I have come to know that teaching and believe in it. May God grant
you this knowledge soon! Good-by."
I kissed his hand and left the room quietly. When I got to
the front door, I rushed to a lonely stone tower, and there sobbed
my heart out in the darkness like a child. Looking round at last,
I saw that some one else was sitting on the staircase near me, also
crying.
So I said farewell to my father years before his death, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: to lick the bones."
"Oh, you wait a bit and you'll be squared," said the handsome man. "I've
been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven't got
anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth
shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way"--he nodded
towards the bell tent--"never got drunk or didn't know how to swear, I'd
sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after it. I could
stand a good lot of that sort of thing--squaring--if it would only come my
way."
The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had not
spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his mouth.
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