| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: death; and this brilliant sceptic, whose mental faculties alone
had survived the most dreadful of all destructions, found himself
between his two special antipathies--the doctor and the
confessor. But he was jovial with them. Did he not see a light
gleaming in the future beyond the veil? The pall that is like
lead for other men was thin and translucent for him; the light-
footed, irresistible delights of youth danced beyond it like
shadows.
It was on a beautiful summer evening that Don Juan felt the near
approach of death. The sky of Spain was serene and cloudless; the
air was full of the scent of orange-blossom; the stars shed
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: beheld it through a haze of fine golden dust, like the motes that
hover in the bars of sunlight slanting through the air of a chamber.
Suddenly the stone lacework of the rose windows gleamed through this
vapor that had made all forms so shadowy. Every moulding, the edges of
every carving, the least detail of the sculpture was dipped in silver.
The sunlight kindled fires in the stained windows, their rich colors
sent out glowing sparks of light. The shafts began to tremble, the
capitals were gently shaken. A light shudder as of delight ran through
the building, the stones were loosened in their setting, the wall-
spaces swayed with graceful caution. Here and there a ponderous pier
moved as solemnly as a dowager when she condescends to complete a
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: told in verse of a really superior quality. You felt as if you were
being taken out for a delightful country drive by a charming lady in
a pony carriage. But in his domestic life that same Carleon Anthony
showed traces of the primitive cave-dweller's temperament. He was a
massive, implacable man with a handsome face, arbitrary and exacting
with his dependants, but marvellously suave in his manner to
admiring strangers. These contrasted displays must have been
particularly exasperating to his long-suffering family. After his
second wife's death his boy, whom he persisted by a mere whim in
educating at home, ran away in conventional style and, as if
disgusted with the amenities of civilization, threw himself,
Chance |
