| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: student. We got rid of every object of luxury; we sold our second
coats, our second boots, our second waistcoats--everything of which we
had a duplicate, except our friend. We ate bread and cold sausages; we
looked where we walked; we had set to work in earnest. We owed two
months' rent, and were sure of having a bill from the porter for sixty
or eighty items each, and amounting to forty or fifty francs. We made
no noise, and did not laugh as we crossed the little hall at the
bottom of the stairs; we commonly took it at a flying leap from the
lowest step into the street. On the day when we first found ourselves
bereft of tobacco for our pipes, it struck us that for some days we
had been eating bread without any kind of butter.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: There stirred within the lean body and rheumatic limbs
depths of unused power, of thought, of love and passion,
and, deeper than all, awful possibilities of change.
"I have it in me still to be worse than a
murderer," she thought, with whitening face.
She stood a long time, alone. A strange content and
light came slowly into her face. "Come what will, I
shall never be left to myself again," she said at last,
speaking to a Friend whom she had found long ago.
Then she went in search of the boy. "Come, Jack," she
said cheerfully, "there are busy days before us."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Off on a Comet by Jules Verne: there might be one amongst the stores.
"Then, surely, you will not object to lend it to us?"
said the captain.
"Only for one day," added the professor.
The Jew stammered again, and began to object. "It is a very
delicate instrument, your Excellency. The cold, you know,
the cold may do injury to the spring; and perhaps you are going
to use it to weigh something very heavy."
"Why, old Ephraim, do you suppose we are going to weigh a mountain with it?"
said Ben Zoof.
"Better than that!" cried out the professor, triumphantly; "we are going
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