| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: When the operation was concluded, and Edmond felt that his
chin was completely smooth, and his hair reduced to its
usual length, he asked for a hand-glass. He was now, as we
have said, three-and-thirty years of age, and his fourteen
years' imprisonment had produced a great transformation in
his appearance. Dantes had entered the Chateau d'If with the
round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man, with
whom the early paths of life have been smooth. and who
anticipates a future corresponding with his past. This was
now all changed. The oval face was lengthened, his smiling
mouth had assumed the firm and marked lines which betoken
The Count of Monte Cristo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: cracks in the walls and threw stones that fell on his miserable bed,
where he lay gasping with catarrh, with long hair, inflamed eyelids,
and a tumour as big as his head on one arm.
She got him some linen, tried to clean his hovel and dreamed of
installing him in the bake-house without his being in Madame's way.
When the cancer broke, she dressed it every day; sometimes she brought
him some cake and placed him in the sun on a bundle of hay; and the
poor old creature, trembling and drooling, would thank her in his
broken voice, and put out his hands whenever she left him. Finally he
died; and she had a mass said for the repose of his soul.
That day a great joy came to her: at dinner-time, Madame de
A Simple Soul |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: the party--to make no allusion to my presence in Genoa. I
wish," said Mr. Buttles with simplicity, "to preserve the
strictest incognito."
Lansing glanced at him kindly. "Oh, but--isn't that a little
unfriendly?"
"No other course is possible, Mr. Lansing," said the ex-
secretary, "and I commit myself to your discretion. The truth
is, if I am here it is not to look once more at the Ibis, but at
Miss Hicks: once only. You will understand me, and appreciate
what I am suffering."
He bowed again, and trotted away on his small, tightly-booted
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