| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Love and Friendship by Jane Austen: Consumption and in a few days carried her off. Amidst all my
Lamentations for her (and violent you may suppose they were) I
yet received some consolation in the reflection of my having paid
every attention to her, that could be offered, in her illness. I
had wept over her every Day--had bathed her sweet face with my
tears and had pressed her fair Hands continually in mine--. "My
beloved Laura (said she to me a few Hours before she died) take
warning from my unhappy End and avoid the imprudent conduct which
had occasioned it. . . Beware of fainting-fits. . . Though at the
time they may be refreshing and agreable yet beleive me they will
in the end, if too often repeated and at improper seasons, prove
Love and Friendship |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: nobles, elderly countesses, young marquises, and simple baronesses--
had settled their losses and winnings. The master of the house was
pacing up and down the room, while Mlle. Armande was putting out the
candles on the card-tables. He was not taking exercise alone, the
Chevalier was with him, and the two wrecks of the eighteenth century
were talking of Victurnien. The Chevalier had undertaken to broach the
subject with the Marquis.
"Yes, Marquis," he was saying, "your son is wasting his time and his
youth; you ought to send him to court."
"I have always thought," said the Marquis, "that if my great age
prevents me from going to court--where, between ourselves, I do not
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson: for yourself, boy. I have tried, as ye see here before you, and
have lost my life. More could no man do."
By this time the wounded man began to be very weary; and Dick,
putting the precious papers in his bosom, bade him be of good
cheer, and left him to repose.
The day was beginning to break, cold and blue, with flying squalls
of snow. Close under the lee of the Good Hope, the coast lay in
alternate rocky headlands and sandy bays; and further inland the
wooded hill-tops of Tunstall showed along the sky. Both the wind
and the sea had gone down; but the vessel wallowed deep, and scarce
rose upon the waves.
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