| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: a question of one's health. One wants to keep one's self alive--
does n't one? One wants to keep one's self going. It would
be so good for me, Mrs. Vivian; it would really be very good for
me!"
She had turned round more and more to her hostess as she talked;
and at last she had given both her hands to Mrs. Vivian, and sat
looking at her with a singular mixture of earnestness and jocosity.
It was hard to know whether Blanche were expressing a real desire
or a momentary caprice, and whether this abrupt little petition
were to be taken seriously, or treated merely as a dramatic pose
in a series of more or less effective attitudes. Her smile had become
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: Lacedaemon, or kings of Persia, a country which the descendants of
Achaemenes have always possessed, besides being at various times sovereigns
of Asia, as they now are; whereas, we and our fathers were but private
persons. How ridiculous would you be thought if you were to make a display
of your ancestors and of Salamis the island of Eurysaces, or of Aegina, the
habitation of the still more ancient Aeacus, before Artaxerxes, son of
Xerxes. You should consider how inferior we are to them both in the
derivation of our birth and in other particulars. Did you never observe
how great is the property of the Spartan kings? And their wives are under
the guardianship of the Ephori, who are public officers and watch over
them, in order to preserve as far as possible the purity of the Heracleid
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Burning Daylight by Jack London: life, it's all the same; it won't alter one grain of sand in all
that land, or twist one blade of grass around sideways.
"Nothing is going to be lost--not one pile out of the docks, not
one railroad spike, not one ounce of steam out of the gauge of a
ferry-boat. The cars will go on running, whether I hold the
paper or somebody else holds it. The tide has set toward
Oakland. People are beginning to pour in. We're selling
building lots again. There is no stopping that tide. No matter
what happens to me or the paper, them three hundred thousand
folks are coming in the same. And there'll be cars to carry them
around, and houses to hold them, and good water for them to drink
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