| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: were moments as the weeks went by when he would have liked, by some
almost aggressive act, to take his stand on the intimacy of his
loss, in order that it MIGHT be questioned and his retort, to the
relief of his spirit, so recorded; but the moments of an irritation
more helpless followed fast on these, the moments during which,
turning things over with a good conscience but with a bare horizon,
he found himself wondering if he oughtn't to have begun, so to
speak, further back.
He found himself wondering indeed at many things, and this last
speculation had others to keep it company. What could he have
done, after all, in her lifetime, without giving them both, as it
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: give you to understand the motive of other people's actions."
"Why? What do you mean?"
"With you, it is not, How is such a one likely to
be influenced, What is the inducement most likely to act
upon such a person's feelings, age, situation, and probable
habits of life considered--but, How should I be influenced,
What would be my inducement in acting so and so?"
"I do not understand you."
"Then we are on very unequal terms, for I understand
you perfectly well."
"Me? Yes; I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible."
Northanger Abbey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ruling Passion by Henry van Dyke: The whole river rushed down upon the canoe and carried it away like
a leaf.
Who says that thought is swift and clear in a moment like that? Who
talks about the whole of a man's life passing before him in a flash
of light? A flash of darkness! Thought is paralyzed, dumb. "What
a fool!" "Good-bye!" "If--" That is about all it can say. And if
the moment is prolonged, it says the same thing over again, stunned,
bewildered, impotent. Then?--The rocking waves; the sinking boat;
the roar of the fall; the swift overturn; the icy, blinding,
strangling water--God!
Jean was flung shoreward. Instinctively he struck out, with the
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