| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: and Otto expanded like a peacock. This warm atmosphere of women and
flattery and idle chatter pleased him to the marrow.
'Madame von Eisenthal, your coiffure is delicious,' he remarked.
'Every one was saying so,' said one.
'If I have pleased Prince Charming?' And Madame von Eisenthal swept
him a deep curtsy with a killing glance of adoration.
'It is new?' he asked. 'Vienna fashion.'
'Mint new,' replied the lady, 'for your Highness's return. I felt
young this morning; it was a premonition. But why, Prince, do you
ever leave us?'
'For the pleasure of the return,' said Otto. 'I am like a dog; I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen: that he even observed Marianne as she quitted the room,
with such astonishment and concern, as hardly left him
the recollection of what civility demanded towards herself.
"Is your sister ill?" said he.
Elinor answered in some distress that she was,
and then talked of head-aches, low spirits, and over fatigues;
and of every thing to which she could decently attribute
her sister's behaviour.
He heard her with the most earnest attention,
but seeming to recollect himself, said no more on the subject,
and began directly to speak of his pleasure at seeing them
Sense and Sensibility |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: had "had a Chinese doctor," to whom the great Viceroy paid
$33,000 for his services. We are told that the Empress Dowager in
reality died first and then the Emperor, though the Emperor's
death was first announced, and the next day that of the Dowager.
What then are we to infer? That the Emperor was poisoned? Let it
be so. That is what the Japanese believed at the time. But who
did it? Most assuredly no one man. One might have employed a
Chinese physician for him, but the last man whose physician the
Emperor would have accepted would have been Yuan Shih-kai's. Had
you or I been ill would we have allowed the man who was the cause
of our fall to select our physician? But granted that Yuan
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