| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: upon which little boxes appeared to open, a large orchestra
was playing operatic selections, and, below, people were
handing about bills of fare, as if they had been programs.
All this was sufficiently curious; but the agreeable thing, later,
was to sit out on one of the great white decks of the steamer,
in the warm breezy darkness, and, in the vague starlight,
to make out the line of low, mysterious coast. The young
Englishmen tried American cigars--those of Mr. Westgate--
and talked together as they usually talked, with many
odd silences, lapses of logic, and incongruities of transition;
like people who have grown old together and learned to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: open country, or among the tall reeds of the marshes. The boat was
full.
"What are you waiting for? Let us put off!" they cried.
Just at that moment a man appeared a few paces from the jetty, to the
surprise of the skipper, who had heard no sound of footsteps. The
traveler seemed to have sprung up from the earth, like a peasant who
had laid himself down on the ground to wait till the boat should
start, and had slept till the sound of the horn awakened him. Was he a
thief? or some one belonging to the custom-house or the police?
As soon as the man appeared on the jetty to which the boat was moored,
seven persons who were standing in the stern of the shallop hastened
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry: I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct
of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with
which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House.
Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves
to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our
petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and
darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and
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