The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: I remember myself in the black blouse with a white border of my
heavy mourning. We were living together, quite alone, in a small
house on the outskirts of the town of T--. That afternoon,
instead of going out to play in the large yard which we shared
with our landlord, I had lingered in the room in which my father
generally wrote. What emboldened me to clamber into his chair I
am sure I don't know, but a couple of hours afterwards he
discovered me kneeling in it with my elbows on the table and my
head held in both hands over the MS. of loose pages. I was
greatly confused, expecting to get into trouble. He stood in the
doorway looking at me with some surprise, but the only thing he
 Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: greatest curiosity to know at what precise moment the sense of
motherhood begins. It cannot possibly be in the midst of frightful
suffering, the very thought of which makes me shudder.
Farewell, favorite of fortune! Farewell, my friend, in whom I live
again, and through whom I am able to picture to myself this brave
love, this jealousy all on fire at a look, these whisperings in the
ear, these joys which create for women, as it were, a new atmosphere,
a new daylight, fresh life! Ah! pet, I too understand love. Don't
weary of telling me everything. Keep faithful to our bond. I promise,
in my turn, to spare you nothing.
Nay--to conclude in all seriousness--I will not conceal from you that,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: brought into the world.
And those boys back there, beginning it
all just as he had begun it; he wished he
could promise them better luck. Ah, if one
could promise any one better luck, if one
could assure a single human being of happiness!
He had thought he could do so, once;
and it was thinking of that that he at last fell
asleep. In his sleep, as if it had nothing
fresher to work upon, his mind went back
and tortured itself with something years and
 Alexander's Bridge |