| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: Anyhow, I held up the bag and looked at it. It must have been
unfastened, for the next instant there was an avalanche on the
snowfield of the counterpane - some money, a wisp of a handkerchief,
a tiny booklet with thin leaves, covered with a powdery substance
- and a necklace. I drew myself up slowly and stared at the
necklace.
It was one of the semi-barbaric affairs that women are wearing now,
a heavy pendant of gold chains and carved cameos, swung from a thin
neck chain of the same metal. The necklace was broken: in three
places the links were pulled apart and the cameos swung loose
and partly detached. But it was the supporting chain that held my
The Man in Lower Ten |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: they have heard about it, seem now to keep it and now to lose it.
Scholars of the lowest class, when they have heard about it, laugh
greatly at it. If it were not (thus) laughed at, it would not be fit
to be the Tao.
2. Therefore the sentence-makers have thus expressed themselves:--
'The Tao, when brightest seen, seems light to lack;
Who progress in it makes, seems drawing back;
Its even way is like a rugged track.
Its highest virtue from the vale doth rise;
Its greatest beauty seems to offend the eyes;
And he has most whose lot the least supplies.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: suddenly.
His real intentions flashed upon me for the first time. I had not
remotely imagined such a step.
"Marry her!" I screeched in dismay. "Marry her!"
I don't know which word was the worse to emphasize at such a moment, but
I emphasized both thoroughly.
"I didn't expect yu'd act that way," said the lover. He dropped behind me
fifty yards and spoke no more.
Not at once did I beg his pardon for the brutality I had been surprised
into. It is one of those speeches that, once said, is said forever.
But it was not that which withheld me. As I thought of the tone in which
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