| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: meet Madame Granson at the corner of the rue Val-Noble. The glance of
the mother, dying of her grief, struck to the heart of the poor woman.
A thousand maledictions, a thousand flaming reproaches, were in that
look: Madame du Bousquier was horror-struck; that glance predicted and
called down evil upon her head.
The evening after the catastrophe, Madame Granson, one of the persons
most opposed to the rector of the town, and who had hitherto supported
the minister of Saint-Leonard, began to tremble as she thought of the
inflexible Catholic doctrines professed by her own party. After
placing her son's body in its shroud with her own hands, thinking of
the mother of the Saviour, she went, with a soul convulsed by anguish,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: further than to understand that she had been brought in one short
moment face to face with something unexpected and final. It did not
even occur to her to ask for any explanation. She thought:
accident--terrible accident--blood to the head--fell down a trap door
in the loft. . . . She remained there, distracted and mute, blinking
her old eyes.
Suddenly, Susan said--
"I have killed him."
For a moment the mother stood still, almost unbreathing, but with
composed face. The next second she burst out into a shout--
"You miserable madwoman . . . they will cut your neck. . . ."
Tales of Unrest |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas: "Sir," said the young man, "do you not come from Paris, if
you please?"
D'Artagnan thought it was some gossip who wanted news from
the capital.
"Yes, sir," he said, in a softened tone.
"Are you not going to put up at the `Arms of England'?"
"Yes, sir."
"Are you not charged with a mission from his eminence,
Cardinal Mazarin?"
"Yes, sir."
"In that case, I am the man you have to do with. I am M.
Twenty Years After |
