| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: of the narrowest red ribbon, which she took downstairs
and tied round the neck of the image. Then fetching
ink and a quilt from the rickety bureau by the window,
she blackened the feet of the image to the extent presumably
covered by shoes; and on the instep of each foot marked
cross-lines in the shape taken by the sandalstrings
of those days. Finally she tied a bit of black thread
round the upper part of the head, in faint resemblance
to a snood worn for confining the hair.
Susan held the object at arm's length and contemplated
it with a satisfaction in which there was no smile.
Return of the Native |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Profits of Religion by Upton Sinclair: It happens that I once knew the stately prelate who presided over
this Corporation of Corruption. I imagine how he would have
shivered and turned pale had some angel whispered to him what
devilish utterances were some day to proceed from the lips of the
little cherub with shining face and shining robes who acted as
the bishop's attendant in the stately ceremonials of the Church!
Truly, even into the goodly company of the elect, even to the
most holy places of the temple, Satan makes his treacherous way!
Even under the consecrated hands of the bishop! For while the
bishop was blessing me and taking me into the company of the
sanctified, I was thinking about what the papers had reported,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: cylinder desk, empty as the cash-box, in the middle of the room, and a
couple of armchairs on either side of a coal fire. The carpet on the
floor was bought cheap at second-hand (like the bills and bad debts).
In short, it was the mahogany furniture of furnished apartments which
usually descends from one occupant of chambers to another during fifty
years of service. Now you know the pair of antagonists.
"During the first three months of a partnership dissolved four months
later in a bout of fisticuffs, Cerizet and Claparon bought up two
thousand francs' worth of bills bearing Maxime's signature (since
Maxime was his name), and filled a couple of letters to bursting with
judgments, appeals, orders of the court, distress-warrants,
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