| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adieu by Honore de Balzac: sooner had the builders seen their handiwork afloat, than they sprang
from the bank with odious selfishness. The major, fearing the fury of
this first rush, held back the countess and the general, but too late
he saw the whole raft covered, men pressing together like crowds at a
theatre.
"Savages!" he cried, "it was I who gave you the idea of that raft. I
have saved you, and you deny me a place."
A confused murmur answered him. The men at the edge of the raft, armed
with long sticks, pressed with violence against the shore to send off
the frail construction with sufficient impetus to force its way
through corpses and ice-floes to the other shore.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: pride as a father was flattered. He adored his children and had but
one object in life, which was to increase their fortunes by
administering the money gained by Rose at the theater and elsewhere
with the businesslike severity of a faithful steward. When as first
fiddle in the music hall where she used to sing he had married her,
they had been passionately fond of one another. Now they were good
friends. There was an understanding between them: she labored hard
to the full extent of her talent and of her beauty; he had given up
his violin in order the better to watch over her successes as an
actress and as a woman. One could not have found a more homely and
united household anywhere!
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: the night."
"At what distance are we from Granite House?" asked Herbert.
"About seven miles," replied the engineer, "taking into calculation,
however, the detours of the river, which has carried us to the northwest."
"Shall we go on?" asked the reporter.
"Yes, as long as we can," replied Cyrus Harding. "To-morrow, at break of
day, we will leave the canoe, and in two hours I hope we shall cross the
distance which separates us from the coast, and then we shall have the
whole day in which to explore the shore."
"Go ahead!" replied Pencroft.
But soon the boat grated on the stony bottom of the river, which was now
The Mysterious Island |
