| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne: the rays of our lantern for at least half a mile round us.
I looked to the port side, and saw nothing but an immensity
of quiet waters. But to starboard, on the bottom appeared
a large protuberance, which at once attracted my attention.
One would have thought it a ruin buried under a coating
of white shells, much resembling a covering of snow.
Upon examining the mass attentively, I could recognise
the ever-thickening form of a vessel bare of its masts,
which must have sunk. It certainly belonged to past times.
This wreck, to be thus encrusted with the lime of the water,
must already be able to count many years passed at the bottom
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: called into lively play. Now, I have often noticed, and always with
new wonder, that two antagonists almost always divine each other's
inmost thoughts and ideas. Two enemies sometimes possess a power of
clear insight into mental processes, and read each other's minds as
two lovers read in either soul. So when we came together, the Countess
and I, I understood at once the reason of her antipathy for me,
disguised though it was by the most gracious forms of politeness and
civility. I had been forced to be her confidant, and a woman cannot
but hate the man before whom she is compelled to blush. And she on her
side knew that if I was the man in whom her husband placed confidence,
that husband had not as yet given up his fortune.
Gobseck |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: said that des Lupeaulx had invented the tale, but Finot always kept
his counsel. The article was caustic and clever, the Liberal papers
and the Orleanists were delighted with it, and Lucien himself laughed,
and thought of it merely as a very amusing canard.
He called next day for des Lupeaulx and the Baron du Chatelet. The
Baron had just been to thank his lordship. The Sieur Chatelet, newly
appointed Councillor Extraordinary, was now Comte du Chatelet, with a
promise of the prefecture of the Charente so soon as the present
prefect should have completed the term of office necessary to receive
the maximum retiring pension. The Comte DU Chatelet (for the DU had
been inserted in the patent) drove with Lucien to the Chancellerie,
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