| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: before, without a certificate.
"You'll have to give in," said Pere Fourchon; "for the Shopman has
gone to see the prefect and get troops to enforce the order. They'll
shoot you like dogs,--and that's what we are!" cried the old man,
trying to conquer the thickening of his speech produced by his
potations of sherry.
This fresh announcement, absurd as it was, made all the drinkers
thoughtful; they really believed the government capable of
slaughtering them without pity.
"I remember just such troubles near Toulouse, when I was stationed
there," said Bonnebault. "We were marched out, and the peasants were
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: imagine that they and the woman they love are the only two beings in
the world; for them millions are dirt; the glove or the camellia
flower that She wore is worth millions. If the squandered filthy lucre
is never to be found again in their possession, you find the remains
of floral relics hoarded in dainty cedar-wood boxes. They cannot
distinguish themselves one from the other; for them there is no 'I'
left. THOU--that is their Word made flesh. What can you do? Can you
stop the course of this 'hidden disease of the heart'? There are fools
that love without calculation and wise men that calculate while they
love."
"To my thinking Bixiou is sublime," cried Blondet. "What does Finot
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: sweetness of its joys. He went along the Quais to see the widest
possible space of sky; his heart had grown in him; he would fain
have had the bounds of the firmament and of earth enlarged. It
seemed to him that his lungs drew an ampler breath.
In the course of his self-examination, as he walked, he vowed to
love this woman so devoutly, that every day of her life she
should find absolution for her sins against society in unfailing
happiness. Sweet stirrings of life when life is at the full!
The man that is strong enough to steep his soul in the colour of
one emotion, feels infinite joy as glimpses open out for him of
an ardent lifetime that knows no diminution of passion to the
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