| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: prone to slander the wealthy in their absence as to flatter them
in their presence, held a less charitable opinion. They said
that the Lord Keeper (for to this height Sir William Ashton had
ascended) had, previous to the final purchase of the estate of
Ravenswood, been concerned in extensive pecuniary transactions
with the former proprietor; and, rather intimating what was
probable than affirming anything positively, they asked which
party was likely to have the advantage in stating and enforcing
the claims arising out of these complicated affairs, and more
than hinted the advantages which the cool lawyer and able
politician must necessarily possess over the hot, fiery, and
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: like a queen in my house all my life till I married you. My wishes
were guessed, fulfilled, and more than fulfilled. After all, I am
thirty-five, and at five-and-thirty a woman cannot expect to be loved.
Ah, if I were a girl of sixteen, if I had not lost something that is
dearly bought at the Opera, what attention you would pay me, M. du
Bruel! I feel the most supreme contempt for men who boast that they
can love and grow careless and neglectful in little things as time
grows on. You are short and insignificant, you see, du Bruel; you love
to torment a woman; it is your only way of showing your strength. A
Napoleon is ready to be swayed by the woman he loves; he loses nothing
by it; but as for such as you, you believe that you are nothing
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: shrink, save those curst beings of another world, who will not
leave me;--I am, in my desperation of this night, past all fear but
that of the hell in which I exist from day to day. Give the
alarm, cry out, refuse to shelter me. I will not hurt you. But I
will not be taken alive; and so surely as you threaten me above
your breath, I fall a dead man on this floor. The blood with which
I sprinkle it, be on you and yours, in the name of the Evil Spirit
that tempts men to their ruin!'
As he spoke, he took a pistol from his breast, and firmly clutched
it in his hand.
'Remove this man from me, good Heaven!' cried the widow. 'In thy
Barnaby Rudge |
