| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: nephew protested against any gentleman remaining at the custom house
since the recent insulting appointment."
I was now almost the only member of the party who had preserved strict
silence throughout this very interesting conversation, because, having no
wish to converse with Juno at any time, I especially did not desire it
now, just after her seeing me (I thought she must have seen me) in
amicable conference with the object of her formidable displeasure.
"Every Mayrant is ferocious that I ever heard of," she continued. "You
cannot trust that seemingly delicate and human exterior. His father had
it, too--deceiving exterior and raging interior, though I will say for
that one that he would never have stooped to humiliate the family name as
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: day had come to the point of dreading lest the marriage should not
come off. He was pressingly civil to the notary.
"I knew monsieur your father," said he, "at Florentine's, so I may
well know you here, at Mademoiselle Turquet's. Like father, like son.
A very good fellow and a philosopher, was little Daddy Cardot--excuse
me, we always called him so. At that time, Florine, Florentine,
Tullia, Coralie, and Mariette were the five fingers of your hand, so
to speak--it is fifteen years ago. My follies, as you may suppose, are
a thing of the past.--In those days it was pleasure that ran away with
me; now I am ambitious; but, in our day, to get on at all a man must
be free from debt, have a good income, a wife, and a family. If I pay
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: penance, would have been scarce rational. Accordingly, I had scarce
risen from my place ere I sat down again, but already in a different
frame of spirits, and equally marvelling at my past weakness and
rejoicing in my present composure.
Presently after came a crackling in the thicket. Putting my mouth near
down to the ground, I whistled a note or two, of Alan's air; an answer
came in the like guarded tone, and soon we had knocked together in the
dark.
"Is this you at last, Davie?" he whispered.
"Just myself," said I.
"God, man, but I've been wearying to see ye!" says he. "I've had the
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