| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from De Profundis by Oscar Wilde: which one does not weep is a day on which one's heart is hard, not
a day on which one's heart is happy.
Well, now I am really beginning to feel more regret for the people
who laughed than for myself. Of course when they saw me I was not
on my pedestal, I was in the pillory. But it is a very
unimaginative nature that only cares for people on their pedestals.
A pedestal may be a very unreal thing. A pillory is a terrific
reality. They should have known also how to interpret sorrow
better. I have said that behind sorrow there is always sorrow. It
were wiser still to say that behind sorrow there is always a soul.
And to mock at a soul in pain is a dreadful thing. In the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave by Frederick Douglass: To attend to this establishment was their sole work.
But it was by no means an easy employment; for in
nothing was Colonel Lloyd more particular than in
the management of his horses. The slightest inat-
tention to these was unpardonable, and was visited
upon those, under whose care they were placed, with
the severest punishment; no excuse could shield
them, if the colonel only suspected any want of
attention to his horses--a supposition which he fre-
quently indulged, and one which, of course, made
the office of old and young Barney a very trying one.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: event thus heralded by the fears of her so-called master and mistress.
The old man paused for a moment on the threshold to scrutinize the
three persons in the room, and seemed to be looking for his young
companion. This glance of inquiry, unsuspicious as it was, agitated
the three. Indeed, nobody, not even the stoutest man, could deny that
Nature had bestowed exceptional powers on this being, who seemed
almost supernatural. Though his eyes were somewhat deeply shaded by
the wide sockets fringed with long eyebrows, they were set, like a
kite's eyes, in eyelids so broad, and bordered by so dark a circle
sharply defined on his cheek, that they seemed rather prominent. These
singular eyes had in them something indescribably domineering and
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