| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: to take the man's point of view.
"That book, my dear, is of both sexes.--We agreed that books were male
or female, dark or fair. In /Adolphe/ women see nothing but Ellenore;
young men see only Adolphe; men of experience see Ellenore and
Adolphe; political men see the whole of social existence. You did not
think it necessary to read the soul of Adolphe--any more than your
critic indeed, who saw only Ellenore. What kills that poor fellow, my
dear, is that he has sacrificed his future for a woman; that he never
can be what he might have been--an ambassador, a minister, a
chamberlain, a poet--and rich. He gives up six years of his energy at
that stage of his life when a man is ready to submit to the hardships
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: Saint-Bernard. The cart was then remounted on its wheels, and the
Knights, by this time hungry and thirsty, returned to Mere Cognette's,
where they were soon seated round the table in the low room, laughing
at the grimaces Fario would make when he came after his barrow in the
morning.
The Knights, naturally, did not play such capers every night. The
genius of Sganarelle, Mascarille, and Scapin combined would not have
sufficed to invent three hundred and sixty-five pieces of mischief a
year. In the first place, circumstances were not always propitious:
sometimes the moon shone clear, or the last prank had greatly
irritated their betters; then one or another of their number refused
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: that she had trifled with another. He was inwardly
convinced that, in accordance with the anticipations of
his easy-going and worse-educated comrades, that day
would see Boldwood the accepted husband of Miss
Everdene. Gabriel at this time of his life had out-
grown the instinctive dislike which every Christian
boy has for reading the Bible, perusing it now quite
frequently, and he inwardly said, "I find more bitter
than death the woman whose heart is snares and
nets!" This was mere exclamation -- the froth of the
storm. He adored Bathsheba just the same.
Far From the Madding Crowd |
