| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: thousand and fifty years, before the good epoch for which he
faithfully labours. He has not deceived himself; he has known
from the beginning that he followed the pillar of fire and
cloud, only to perish himself in the wilderness, and that it
was reserved for others to enter joyfully into possession of
the land. And so, as everything grows grayer and quieter
about him, and slopes towards extinction, these unfaded
visions accompany his sad decline, and follow him, with
friendly voices and hopeful words, into the very vestibule of
death. The desire of love or of fame scarcely moved him, in
his days of health, more strongly than these generous
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The House of Dust by Conrad Aiken: And took it home with him; and with it came
What unexpected changes, subtle as weather!
The dark room, cold as rain,
Grew faintly fragrant, stirred with a stir of April,
Warmed its corners with light again,
And smoke of incense whirled about this portrait,
And the quiet lady there,
So young, so quietly smiling, with calm hands,
Seemed ready to loose her hair,
And smile, and lean from the picture, or say one word,
The word already clear,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: his birth which "was not like that of others," Sallenauve stated
clearly his political ideas. A Republic he thought the finest of all
governments; but he did not believe it possible to establish one in
France; consequently, he did not desire it. He thought that a truly
parliamentary government, in which court influence should be so
vigorously muzzled that nothing need be feared from its tendency to
interference and caballing would best conduce to the dignity and the
welfare of the nation. Liberty and equality, the two great principles
that triumphed in '89, would obtain from such a government the
strongest guarantees. As to the manoeuvring of the royal power against
those principles, it was not for institutions to check it, but for
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