| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: "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,
application for stay of proceedings, and all the rest of it; to put it
briefly, they had bills for three thousand two hundred francs odd
centimes, for which they had given five hundred francs; the transfer
being made under private seal, with special power of attorney, to save
the expense of registration. Now it so happened at this juncture,
Maxime, being of ripe age, was seized with one of the fancies peculiar
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mistress Wilding by Rafael Sabatini: as if he were the first gallant that ever toasted lady's eyes."
"I am no lady of his, Diana," Ruth reminded her, with a faint show of heat.
Diana shrugged her shoulders. "You may not love him, but you can't
ordain that he shall not love you. You are very harsh, I think. To me
it rather seems that Richard acted like a boor."
"But, mistress," cried Sir Rowland, half out of countenance, and
stifling his vexation, "in these matters it all depends upon the manner."
"Why, yes," she agreed; "and whatever Mr. Wilding's manner, if I know
him at all, it would be nothing but respectful to the last degree."
"My own conception of respect," said he, "is not to bandy a lady's
name about a company of revellers."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: stir the inert mass and no means for taking it to the top. Yet watch it.
Beneath its lower side, hidden from sight, are a million fine tentacles;
impulses of will from the central nerve radiate throughout the whole body,
and each tiny fibre, fine as a hair, slowly extends itself, and seizes on
the minute particle of rough rock nearest to it; now a small tentacle slips
its hold, and then it holds firmly, and then slowly and slowly the whole
inert mass rises to the top.
It is often said of those who lead in this attempt at the readaption of
woman's relation to life, that they are "New Women"; and they are at times
spoken of as though they were a something portentous and unheard-of in the
order of human life.
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