| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: Genestas stopped short, looked at his new friend uneasily, and said,
"You must excuse me, Benassis, I am no orator; things come out just as
they turn up in my mind. In a room full of fine folk I should feel
awkward, but here in the country with you----"
"Go on," said the doctor.
"When I came back to my room I found Renard finely flustered. He
thought I had fallen in a duel. He was cleaning his pistols, his head
full of schemes for fastening a quarrel on any one who should have
turned me off into the dark. . . . Oh! that was just the fellow's way!
I confided my story to Renard, showed him the kennel where the
children were; and, as my comrade understood the jargon that those
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: better go if you have any friends amongst the savages near by.'
`Plenty,' he said. `They are simple people--and I want nothing,
you know.' He stood biting his lip, then: `I don't want any harm
to happen to these whites here, but of course I was thinking of
Mr. Kurtz's reputation--but you are a brother seaman and--' `All right,'
said I, after a time. `Mr. Kurtz's reputation is safe with me.'
I did not know how truly I spoke.
"He informed me, lowering his voice, that it was Kurtz
who had ordered the attack to be made on the steamer.
`He hated sometimes the idea of being taken away--and then again.
. . . But I don't understand these matters. I am a simple man.
Heart of Darkness |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: of Prison "Portraits," written evidently by one who had
himself undergone a term of imprisonment. One of the "Portraits"
was devoted to an account of Butler. The writer had known Butler
in prison. According to the story told him by Butler, the latter
had arrived in Dunedin with a quantity of jewellery he had stolen
in Australia. This jewellery he entrusted to a young woman for
safe keeping. After serving his first term of two years'
imprisonment in Dunedin, Butler found on his release that the
young woman had married a man of the name of Dewar. Butler went
to Mrs. Dewar and asked for the return of his jewellery; she
refused to give it up. On the night of the murder he called at
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
