| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: Now Diard, far from arresting the spot of oil on his garments left by
his antecedents, did his best to spread it. Incapable of studying the
phase of the empire in the midst of which he came to live in Paris, he
wanted to be made prefect. At that time every one believed in the
genius of Napoleon; his favor enhanced the value of all offices.
Prefectures, those miniature empires, could only be filled by men of
great names, or chamberlains of H.M. the emperor and king. Already the
prefects were a species of vizier. The myrmidons of the great man
scoffed at Diard's pretensions to a prefecture, whereupon he lowered
his demand to a sub-prefecture. There was, of course, a ridiculous
discrepancy between this latter demand and the magnitude of his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened
that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were
really experimenting on ourselves.
While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the door,
and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for dinner.
He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had smitten into
scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite. The panes glowed
like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a faded rose.
He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and wondered how it was
all going to end.
When he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne: of his arguments.
He then violently attacked the labors of the Gun Club, published
a number of letters in the newspapers, endeavored to prove Barbicane
ignorant of the first principles of gunnery. He maintained that
it was absolutely impossible to impress upon any body whatever
a velocity of 12,000 yards per second; that even with such a
velocity a projectile of such a weight could not transcend the
limits of the earth's atmosphere. Further still, even regarding
the velocity to be acquired, and granting it to be sufficient,
the shell could not resist the pressure of the gas developed by
the ignition of 1,600,000 pounds of powder; and supposing it to
From the Earth to the Moon |
