| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: to know and test the woman to whom he would be entrusting his
happiness. His love had not hindered him from perceiving in Emilie the
prejudices which marred her young nature; but before attempting to
counteract them, he wished to be sure that she loved him, for he would
no sooner risk the fate of his love than of his life. He had,
therefore, persistently kept a silence to which his looks, his
behavior, and his smallest actions gave the lie.
On her side, the self-respect natural to a young girl, augmented in
Mademoiselle de Fontaine by the monstrous vanity founded on her birth
and beauty, kept her from meeting the declaration half-way, which her
growing passion sometimes urged her to invite. Thus the lovers had
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heroes by Charles Kingsley: stronger than Pelias the terrible?'
'I can try my strength with his,' said Jason; but Cheiron
sighed, and said -
'You have many a danger to go through before you rule in
Iolcos by the sea: many a danger and many a woe; and strange
troubles in strange lands, such as man never saw before.'
'The happier I,' said Jason, 'to see what man never saw
before.'
And Cheiron sighed again, and said, 'The eaglet must leave
the nest when it is fledged. Will you go to Iolcos by the
sea? Then promise me two things before you go.'
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Aeneid by Virgil: Rather with steel thy guilty breast invade,
And take the fortune thou thyself hast made.
Your pity, sister, first seduc'd my mind,
Or seconded too well what I design'd.
These dear-bought pleasures had I never known,
Had I continued free, and still my own;
Avoiding love, I had not found despair,
But shar'd with salvage beasts the common air.
Like them, a lonely life I might have led,
Not mourn'd the living, nor disturb'd the dead."
These thoughts she brooded in her anxious breast.
Aeneid |
