| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw: adornment, was complaining so unpleasantly of her failure to get
taken off his hands, that she could hardly bear to live at home,
and was ready to marry any thoroughbred gentleman, however
unsuitable his age or character, who would relieve her from her
humiliating dependence. She was prepared to sacrifice her natural
desire for youth, beauty, and virtue in a husband if she could
escape from her parents on no easier terms, but she was resolved
to die an old maid sooner than marry an upstart.
The difficulty in her way was pecuniary. The admiral was poor. He
had not quite six thousand a year, and though he practiced the
utmost economy in order to keep up the most expensive habits, he
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: and the whole charm of the house consisted in its neatness and harmony
with its surroundings.
It was rather difficult, therefore, to say whether the strange lady
(Mme. Willemsens, as she styled herself) belonged to the upper middle
or higher classes, or to an equivocal, unclassified feminine species.
Her plain dress gave rise to the most contradictory suppositions, but
her manners might be held to confirm those favorable to her. She had
not lived at Saint-Cyr, moreover, for very long before her reserve
excited the curiosity of idle people, who always, and especially in
the country, watch anybody or anything that promises to bring some
interest into their narrow lives.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: for mental improvement. Hard work, night and day, over a furnace hot
enough to keep the metal running like water, was more favorable
to action than thought; yet here I often nailed a newspaper to the post
near my bellows, and read while I was performing the up and down motion
of the heavy beam by which the bellows was inflated and discharged.
It was the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and I look back to it now,
after so many years, with some complacency and a little wonder that I could
have been so earnest and persevering in any pursuit other than for my
daily bread. I certainly saw nothing in the conduct of those around
to inspire me with such interest: they were all devoted exclusively
to what their hands found to do. I am glad to be able to say that,
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