| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: painted houses of Andernach, pressed together like eggs in a basket,
and separated only by trees, gardens, and flowers. Then he admired for
a moment the pointed roofs with their projecting eaves, the wooden
staircases, the galleries of a thousand peaceful dwellings, and the
vessels swaying to the waves in the port.
[At the moment when Monsieur Hermann uttered the name of Prosper
Magnan, my opposite neighbor seized the decanter, poured out a glass
of water, and emptied it at a draught. This movement having attracted
my attention, I thought I noticed a slight trembling of the hand and a
moisture on the brow of the capitalist.
"What is that man's name?" I asked my neighbor.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: and Gabrielle's little speech caused him infinite pain. He had come
with his heart full, fearing some cloud upon his daylight, and he met
a doubt. His joy was extinguished; back into his desert he plunged, no
longer finding there the flowers with which he had embellished it.
With that prescience of sorrows which characterizes the angel charged
to soften them--who is, no doubt, the Charity of heaven--Gabrielle
instantly divined the pain she had caused. She was so vividly aware of
her fault that she prayed for the power of God to lay bare her soul to
Etienne, for she knew the cruel pang a reproach or a stern look was
capable of causing; and she artlessly betrayed to him these clouds as
they rose in her soul,--the golden swathings of her dawning love. One
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: silent.] Have you any other reason, Mrs. Arbuthnot, why you don't
wish your son to accept this post?
GERALD. Have you, mother? Do answer.
LORD ILLINGWORTH. If you have, Mrs. Arbuthnot, pray, pray say it.
We are quite by ourselves here. Whatever it is, I need not say I
will not repeat it.
GERALD. Mother?
LORD ILLINGWORTH. If you would like to be alone with your son, I
will leave you. You may have some other reason you don't wish me
to hear.
MRS. ARBUTHNOT. I have no other reason.
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