| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: many hopes defeated by a change of weather! He was hanging there to a
granite rock, his arm extended like that of an Indian fakir, while his
father, sitting in their hovel, awaited, in silence and darkness, a
meal of the coarsest bread and shell-fish, if the sea permitted.
"Do you ever drink wine?" I asked.
"Three or four times a year," he replied.
"Well, you shall drink it to-day,--you and your father; and we will
send you some white bread."
"You are very kind, monsieur."
"We will give you your dinner if you will show us the way along the
shore to Batz, where we wish to see the tower which overlooks the bay
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Blix by Frank Norris: left them long enough to write your novel? You could write it in a
month, couldn't you, if you had nothing else to do? Suppose you
left them for a month--would they hold your place for you?"
"Yes--yes, I think they would; but in the meanwhile, Blix--there's
the rub. I've never saved a cent out of my salary. When I stop,
my pay stops, and wherewithal would I be fed? What are you looking
for in that drawer--matches? Here, I've got a match."
Blix faced about at the sideboard, shutting the drawer by leaning
against it. In both hands she held one of the delft sugar-bowls.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: life of a frivolous Frenchwoman? why did you devour the goods of God
with churchmen, the substance of the poor with extortioners and
fleecers of the poor? Oh! I have sinned indeed!--Oh my God! my God!
let me finish my time in hell here in this world of misery."
And again she cried, "Holy Virgin, Mother of God, have pity upon me!"
"Be comforted, mother. God is not a Lombard usurer. I may have killed
people good and bad at random in my time, but I am not afraid of the
resurrection."
"Ah! master Lancepesade, how happy those fair ladies are, to be so
near to a bishop, a holy man! They will get absolution for their
sins," said the old woman. "Oh! if I could only hear a priest say to
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