| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Christ in Flanders by Honore de Balzac: the edge of the vessel, keeping his balance by planting his feet
against one of those traverse beams, like the backbone of a fish, that
hold the planks of a boat together. A young mother, who bore her baby
in her arms, and seemed to belong to the working class in Ostend,
moved aside to make room for the stranger. There was neither servility
nor scorn in her manner of doing this; it was a simple sign of the
goodwill by which the poor, who know by long experience the value of a
service and the warmth that fellowship brings, give expression to the
open-heartedness and the natural impulses of their souls; so artlessly
do they reveal their good qualities and their defects. The stranger
thanked her by a gesture full of gracious dignity, and took his place
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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: fuss about a girl who was carrying on an intrigue with an apprentice
to a cabinet-maker! If the case goes on in this way," he cried,
insolently, "we shall demand other judges on the ground of legitimate
suspicion."
Vinet left the court-room, and went among the chief men of his party
to explain Rogron's position, declaring that he had never so much as
given a flip to his cousin, and that the judge had viewed him much
less as Pierrette's guardian than as a leading elector in Provins.
To hear Vinet, people might have supposed that the Tiphaines were
making a great fuss about nothing; the mounting was bringing forth a
mouse. Sylvie, an eminently virtuous and pious woman, had discovered
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: on her father and Elizabeth; to consider the various sources
of mortification preparing for them! Mrs Clay's selfishness was
not so complicate nor so revolting as his; and Anne would have compounded
for the marriage at once, with all its evils, to be clear of Mr Elliot's
subtleties in endeavouring to prevent it.
On Friday morning she meant to go very early to Lady Russell,
and accomplish the necessary communication; and she would have gone
directly after breakfast, but that Mrs Clay was also going out
on some obliging purpose of saving her sister trouble, which
determined her to wait till she might be safe from such a companion.
She saw Mrs Clay fairly off, therefore, before she began to talk
Persuasion |
