| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: loved her so blindly that the whole household rejoiced over a
circumstance that enabled them to hide the dolorous spectacle of the
funeral from the sorrowing Baroness. Isaure and Malvina would not
allow their idolized mother to see their tears.
"While the Requiem was chanted, they diverted her thoughts to the
choice of mourning dresses. While the coffin was placed in the huge,
black and white, wax-besprinkled catafalque that does duty for some
three thousand dead in the course of its career--so I was informed by
a philosophically-minded mute whom I once consulted on a point over a
couple of glasses of petit blanc--while an indifferent priest mumbling
the office for the dead, do you know what the friends of the departed
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: crossed an open space on one of the higher points of land, and
disappeared again behind a dark clump of juniper and the pointed
firs.
As I came away on the little coastwise steamer, there was an
old sea running which made the surf leap high on all the rocky
shores. I stood on deck, looking back, and watched the busy gulls
agree and turn, and sway together down the long slopes of air, then
separate hastily and plunge into the waves. The tide was setting
in, and plenty of small fish were coming with it, unconscious of
the silver flashing of the great birds overhead and the quickness
of their fierce beaks. The sea was full of life and spirit, the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: us, O Macumazahn, Son of George," and he cast his assegai to the ground.
"Come," I said, and led them to the wagons.
CHAPTER XII
DINGAAN'S BET
As I advanced to the wagons accompanied by Kambula and his two
companions, I saw that Marais, in a state of great excitement, was
engaged in haranguing the two Prinsloo men and Meyer, while the Vrouw
Prinsloo and Marie appeared to be attempting to calm him.
"They are unarmed," I heard him shout. "Let us seize the black devils
and hold them as hostages."
Thereon, led by Marais, the three Boer men came towards us doubtfully,
Marie |
