| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: of the man of law, and nine-tenths of the profession are bound sooner
or later to regard themselves as shelved for good in the provinces.
Wherefore, every Tribunal of First Instance and every Court-Royal is
sharply divided in two. The first section has given up hope, and is
either torpid or content; content with the excessive respect paid to
office in a country town, or torpid with tranquillity. The second
section is made up of the younger sort, in whom the desire of success
is untempered as yet by disappointment, and of the really clever men
urged on continually by ambition as with a goad; and these two are
possessed with a sort of fanatical belief in their order.
At this time the younger men were full of Royalist zeal against the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane: She thought he must live in a blare of pleasure. He had friends,
and people who were afraid of him.
She saw the golden glitter of the place where Pete was to take
her. An entertainment of many hues and many melodies where she was
afraid she might appear small and mouse-colored.
Her mother drank whiskey all Friday morning. With lurid face
and tossing hair she cursed and destroyed furniture all Friday
afternoon. When Maggie came home at half-past six her mother lay
asleep amidst the wreck of chairs and a table. Fragments of
various household utensils were scattered about the floor.
She had vented some phase of drunken fury upon the lambrequin.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: from the same timber we're made of! Of the same sound
timber from which heroes . . ."
With a confidence as sudden as it was courageous,
he hit the General across the chest. The General smiled
benevolently.
Valderrama, the tramp, the crazy maker of verses, did
he ever know what he said?
When the soldiers reached a small ranch, despairingly,
they searched the empty huts and small houses without
finding a single stale tortilla, a solitary rotten pepper, or
one pinch of salt with which to flavor the horrible taste
The Underdogs |
