| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: one. To wait five years to double our capital won't do for us; it is
better to employ it in other ways. There are so many chances! You are
trying to circulate paper to pay your notes when they fall due,--a
dangerous game. It is wiser to step back for a better leap. The affair
does not suit us."
This sentence struck Birotteau as if the executioner had stamped his
shoulder with the marking-iron; he lost his head.
"Come," said Adolphe, "my brother feels a great interest in you; he
spoke of you to me. Let us examine into your affairs," he added,
glancing at Cesar with the look of a courtesan eager to pay her rent.
Birotteau became Molineux,--a being at whom he had once laughed so
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald: nothing, he had taken nothing.
A belated freshman, his oilskin slicker rasping loudly, slushed
along the soft path. A voice from somewhere called the inevitable
formula, "Stick out your head!" below an unseen window. A hundred
little sounds of the current drifting on under the fog pressed in
finally on his consciousness.
"Oh, God!" he cried suddenly, and started at the sound of his
voice in the stillness. The rain dripped on. A minute longer he
lay without moving, his hands clinched. Then he sprang to his
feet and gave his clothes a tentative pat.
"I'm very damn wet!" he said aloud to the sun-dial.
This Side of Paradise |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: hundred thousand that he might be picked up, and an even
smaller chance that he would reach land, so he determined
that to combine what slight chances there were, he would
swim slowly in the direction of the coast--the ship might
have been closer in than he had known.
His strokes were long and easy--it would be many hours
before those giant muscles would commence to feel fatigue.
As he swam, guided toward the east by the stars, he noticed
that he felt the weight of his shoes, and so he removed them.
His trousers went next, and he would have removed his coat
at the same time but for the precious papers in its pocket.
The Return of Tarzan |
