| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: fragment breaking forth from the incredible, slow, progressive
destruction around it. The foot seemed to them like the torso of some
Grecian Venus, brought to light amid the ruins of a burned city.
"There is a woman beneath it all!" cried Porbus, calling Poussin's
attention to the layers of color which the old painter had
successively laid on, believing that he thus brought his work to
perfection. The two men turned towards him with one accord, beginning
to comprehend, though vaguely, the ecstasy in which he lived.
"He means it in good faith," said Porbus.
"Yes, my friend," answered the old man, rousing from his abstraction,
"we need faith; faith in art. We must live with our work for years
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: benefit to their apprentices.
Pierrette, whose true and noble and extreme sensibility was the
antipodes of the Rogrons' hardness, had a dread of being scolded; it
wounded her so sharply that the tears would instantly start in her
beautiful, pure eyes. She had a great struggle with herself before she
could repress the enchanting sprightliness which made her so great a
favorite elsewhere. After a time she displayed it only in the homes of
her little friends. By the end of the first month she had learned to
be passive in her cousins' house,--so much so that Rogron one day
asked her if she was ill. At that sudden question, she ran to the end
of the garden, and stood crying beside the river, into which her tears
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: HASTINGS. What's to be done, Marlow?
MARLOW. This house promises but a poor reception; though perhaps the
landlord can accommodate us.
LANDLORD. Alack, master, we have but one spare bed in the whole
house.
TONY. And to my knowledge, that's taken up by three lodgers already.
(After a pause, in which the rest seem disconcerted.) I have hit it.
Don't you think, Stingo, our landlady could accommodate the gentlemen
by the fire-side, with----three chairs and a bolster?
HASTINGS. I hate sleeping by the fire-side.
MARLOW. And I detest your three chairs and a bolster.
She Stoops to Conquer |
