| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: lights, he affected to hesitate between vice and virtue.
"Why, you are as cold as a paving-stone in winter!" she exclaimed in
amazement. "Come, now. You will make a whole family happy--a
grandfather who runs all the errands, a mother who is being worn out
with work, and two sisters--one of them very plain--who make thirty-
two sous a day while putting their eyes out. It will make up for the
misery you have caused at home, and you will expiate your sin while
you are having as much fun as a minx at Mabille."
Hulot, to put an end to this temptation, moved his fingers as if he
were counting out money.
"Oh! be quite easy as to ways and means," replied Josepha. "My Duke
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: but we neither found the Countess nor any sign that she had
passed that way. At last we turned back, and under the walls of
some outbuildings I heard a smothered, wailing cry, so stifled
that it was scarcely audible. The sound seemed to come from a
place that might have been a granary. I went in at all risks, and
there we found Juliette. With the instinct of despair, she had
buried herself deep in the hay, hiding her face in it to deaden
those dreadful cries--pudency even stronger than grief. She was
sobbing and crying like a child, but there was a more poignant,
more piteous sound in the sobs. There was nothing left in the
world for her. The maid pulled the hay from her, her mistress
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: fire mysteriously and smoldered for days, so that
amazed ships came into a roadstead full of sulphurous
smoke, and the sun hung blood-red at midday. He re-
membered the things, the faces, and something more
besides--like the faint flavor of a cup quaffed to the
bottom, like a subtle sparkle of the air that was not
to be found in the atmosphere of to-day.
In this evocation, swift and full of detail like a flash
of magnesium light into the niches of a dark memorial
hall, Captain Whalley contemplated things once impor-
tant, the efforts of small men, the growth of a great
End of the Tether |
