| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: only for boys and greenhorns like you; and that is what I have
taken the liberty this morning to go and tell the minister of
public instruction, by whom I must say I was received with the
most perfect urbanity. I asked him to see whether, as he had made
a mistake and sent them to the wrong address, he could not take
back his cross and his pension,--though to be sure, as I told him,
I deserved them for other things.
"The government," he replied, "is not in the habit of making
mistakes; what it does is always properly done, and it never
annuls an ordinance signed by the hand of his Majesty. Your great
labors have deserved the two favors the King has granted you; it
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: skirt. A skirt as bouffant as the other had been scant. I was
sure it wouldn't be a gradual process at all but a mushroom
growth--hobbles to-day, hoops to-morrow. Study the history of
women's clothes, and you'll find that has always been true."
"Look here, Emma," began Buck, desperately; "you're wrong, all
wrong! Here, let me throw this scarf over your shoulders. Now
we'll sit down and talk this thing over sensibly."
"I'll agree to the scarf"--she drew a soft, silken, fringed
shawl about her and immediately one thought of a certain vivid,
brilliant portrait of a hoop-skirted dancer--"but don't ask me
to sit down. I'd rebound like a toy balloon. I've got to
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: the stone, if, indeed, my peculiar faculty for 'seeing' gold was not
an abuse of the power of sight which predestined me to lose it. Bianca
was dead.
"At this time I had fallen in love with a woman to whom I thought to
link my fate. I had told her the secret of my name; she belonged to a
powerful family; she was a friend of Mme. du Barry; I hoped everything
from the favor shown me by Louis XV.; I trusted in her. Acting on her
advice, I went to London to consult a famous oculist, and after a stay
of several months in London she deserted me in Hyde Park. She had
stripped me of all that I had, and left me without resource. Nor could
I make complaint, for to disclose my name was to lay myself open to
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