| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: And in this way the isolation of the great, the sharply marked
distinction in their manner of life, or in a word, the general
custom of the patrician caste is at once the sign of a real
power, and their destruction so soon as that power is lost. The
Faubourg Saint-Germain failed to recognise the conditions of its
being, while it would still have been easy to perpetuate its
existence, and therefore was brought low for a time. The
Faubourg should have looked the facts fairly in the face, as the
English aristocracy did before them; they should have seen that
every institution has its climacteric periods, when words lose
their old meanings, and ideas reappear in a new guise, and the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: solemnity.
I was rather sorry for him. Wasn't he worried! The agony of
solemnity. At the same time I was amused. I didn't take a gloomy
view of that "vanishing girl" trick. Somehow I couldn't. But I
said nothing. None of us said anything. We sat about that big
round table as if assembled for a conference and looked at each
other in a sort of fatuous consternation. I would have ended by
laughing outright if I had not been saved from that impropriety by
poor Fyne becoming preposterous.
He began with grave anguish to talk of going to the police in the
morning, of printing descriptive bills, of setting people to drag
Chance |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Virginian by Owen Wister: the silence? For the silence which I had liked until now seemed
suddenly to be made too great by the presence of the deserted
buildings. And then the door of the stable opened, and men came
out and stood, also watching me arrive. By the time I was
dismounting more were there. It was senseless to feel as
unpleasant as I did, and I strove to give to them a greeting that
should sound easy. I told them that I hoped there was room for
one more here to-night. Some of them had answered my greeting,
but none of them answered this; and as I began to be sure that I
recognized several of their strangely imperturbable faces, the
Virginian came from the stable; and at that welcome sight my
The Virginian |
