| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: confirmed an assertion of Lavater as to persons who are destined to
commit murder; his front teeth lapped each other. Nevertheless his
face bore all the characteristics of integrity and a sweet and artless
moral nature; there was nothing surprising in the fact that a woman
had loved him passionately. His fresh mouth with its dazzling teeth
was charming, but the vermilion of the lips was of the red-lead tint
which indicates repressed ferocity, and, in many human beings, a free
abandonment to pleasure. His demeanor showed none of the low habits of
a workman. In the eyes of the women who were present at the trial it
seemed evident that one of their sex had softened those muscles used
to toil, had ennobled the countenance of the rustic, and given grace
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: happens, some hue of what she laughed at remained in the grain.
A Parisian woman sees so many examples of good taste that a contrary
result ensues. In Paris women learn to seize the hour and moment when
they may appear to advantage; while Madame de la Baudraye, accustomed
to take the stage, acquired an indefinable theatrical and domineering
manner, the air of a /prima donna/ coming forward on the boards, of
which ironical smiles would soon have cured her in the capital.
But after she had acquired this stock of absurdities, and, deceived by
her worshipers, imagined them to be added graces, a moment of terrible
awakening came upon her like the fall of an avalanche from a mountain.
In one day she was crushed by a frightful comparison.
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: Mr. Covey observed me. I was still bleeding, and the exertion of
running had started the blood afresh. _"Come back! Come back!"_
vociferated Covey, with threats of what he would do if I did not
return instantly. But, disregarding his calls and his threats, I
pressed on toward the woods as fast as my feeble state would
allow. Seeing no signs of my stopping, Covey caused his horse to
be brought out and saddled, as if he intended to pursue me. The
race was now to be an unequal one; and, thinking I might be
overhauled by him, if I kept the main road, I walked nearly the
whole distance in the woods, keeping far enough from the road to
avoid detection and pursuit. But, I had not gone far, before my
My Bondage and My Freedom |
