| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: speak, a psychological and literary curiosity. He wanted to know the
height that woman had attained, and what were the injuries she thus
forgave; he longed to know how these women of the world, taxed with
frivolity, cold-heartedness, and egotism, could be such angels.
Remembering how the princess had already repulsed him when he first
tried to read that celestial heart, his voice, and he himself,
trembled as he took the transparent, slender hand of the beautiful
Diane with its curving finger-tips, and said,--
"Are we now such friends that you will tell me what you have
suffered?"
"Yes," she said, breathing forth the syllable like the most
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: velvet lichen, were almost destroyed by the alternate action of sun
and rain. A few aloe plants and some chance-sown pellitory grew on the
tops of the square pillars of the gates, which all but concealed the
stems of a couple of thornless acacias that raised their tufted
spikes, like a pair of green powder-puffs, in the yard.
The condition of the gateway revealed a certain carelessness of its
owner which did not seem to suit the officer's turn of mind. He
knitted his brows like a man who is obliged to relinquish some
illusion. We usually judge others by our own standard; and although we
indulgently forgive our own shortcomings in them, we condemn them
harshly for the lack of our special virtues. If the commandant had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: resting on opposite edges of the world.
In that singular light every little tree and shock of wheat, every sunflower
stalk and clump of snow-on-the-mountain, drew itself up high and pointed;
the very clods and furrows in the fields seemed to stand up sharply.
I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes out
of those fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a little boy again,
and that my way could end there.
We reached the edge of the field, where our ways parted.
I took her hands and held them against my breast, feeling once
more how strong and warm and good they were, those brown hands,
and remembering how many kind things they had done for me.
My Antonia |
