| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Damaged Goods by Upton Sinclair: "Oh, it's a common story," she said--"nothing especially
romantic. I came to Paris when I was a girl. My parents had
died, and I had no friends, and I didn't know what to do. I got
a place as a nursemaid. I was seventeen years old then, and I
didn't know anything. I believed what I was told, and I believed
my employer. His wife was ill in a hospital, and he said he
wanted to marry me when she died. Well, I liked him, and I was
sorry for him--and then the first thing I knew I had a baby. And
then the wife came back, and I was turned off. I had been a
fool, of course. If I had been in her place should have done
just what she did."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: evenings before. He now and then addressed Frederica, but more frequently
her mother. The poor girl sat all this time without opening her lips--her
eyes cast down, and her colour varying every instant; while Reginald
observed all that passed in perfect silence. At length Lady Susan, weary, I
believe, of her situation, proposed walking; and we left the two gentlemen
together, to put on our pelisses. As we went upstairs Lady Susan begged
permission to attend me for a few moments in my dressing-room, as she was
anxious to speak with me in private. I led her thither accordingly, and as
soon as the door was closed, she said: "I was never more surprized in my
life than by Sir James's arrival, and the suddenness of it requires some
apology to you, my dear sister; though to ME, as a mother, it is highly
Lady Susan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: "I shall have to carry this off to the study, I've got a lot of
work to-night."
Alone in the study he cursed his cowardice. What was it that had
withheld him? A certain bright unapproachableness seemed to keep
him at arm's length. She was not the kind of woman whose
compassion could be circumvented; there was no chance of slipping
past the outposts; he would never take her by surprise. Well--why
not face her, then? What he shrank from could be no worse than
what he was enduring. He had pushed back his chair and turned to
go upstairs when a new expedient presented itself. What if,
instead of telling her, he were to let her find out for herself
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