| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: principles and aversions were a survival of provincial prudishness;
and they preached the creed of woman's superiority.
Before long, her jealousy put weapons into Lousteau's hands. During
the carnival of 1840, she disguised herself to go to the balls at the
Opera-house, and to suppers where she met courtesans, in order to keep
an eye on all Etienne's amusements.
On the day of Mid-Lent--or rather, at eight on the morning after--
Dinah came home from the ball in her fancy dress to go to bed. She had
gone to spy on Lousteau, who, believing her to be ill, had engaged
himself for that evening to Fanny Beaupre. The journalist, warned by a
friend, had behaved so as to deceive the poor woman, only too ready to
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: thousand-dollar clock exposed for sale caused me annoyance. Of course my
salary as a clerk brought me into no unfavourable comparison with the
clock; and I doubt if I could make you understand my sometimes feeling
when I passed Tiffany's window that I should like to smash the clock."
"I met Ethel frequently in society, dancing with her, and sitting next
her at dinners. And by the time I had dined at her own house, and walked
several afternoons with her, my lot as a six-hundred-dollar clerk began
to seem very sad to me. I wrote verses about it, and about other subjects
also. From an evening passed with Ethel, I would go next morning to the
office and look at the other clerks. One of them was fifty-five, and he
still received six hundred dollars--his wages for the last thirty years. I
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: Abyssin, and no reward was thought great enough for so important a
service. Peter Leon, having stood by some time, asked whether the
King had but one ear? if he had two, says he, it seems likely that
the man who killed him cut off one and keeps it as a proof of his
exploit. The Abyssin stood confused, and the Portuguese produced
the ear out of his pocket. Every one commended the stratagem; and
the Emperor commanded the Abyssin to restore all the presents he had
received, and delivered them with many more to Peter Leon.
I imagined the reader would not be displeased to be informed who
this man was, whose precious remains were searched for by a viceroy
of Tigre, at the command of the Emperor himself. The commission was
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