| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: dine at the first restauranteur's whose shop caught our eye. At
dessert a bottle of champagne completely refreshed and brightened up
the memories of this odd old soldier. He told me his story, and I saw
that he was right when he exclaimed, 'Well known.' "
When she got home, she teased me to that extent, was so charming, and
made so many promises, that I consented to communicate to her the
confidences of the old soldier. Next day she received the following
episode of an epic which one might call "The French in Egypt."
During the expedition in Upper Egypt under General Desaix, a Provencal
soldier fell into the hands of the Maugrabins, and was taken by these
Arabs into the deserts beyond the falls of the Nile.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: The shiver that runs through the earth ere she rouses from
her night-sleep had already begun, and the cool wind that
heralds the daybreak was drawing downward from the lofty
snow-traced ravines of Mount Orontes. Birds, half-awakened,
crept and chirped among the rustling leaves, and the smell of
ripened grapes came in brief wafts from the arbours.
Far over the eastern plain a white mist stretched like a
lake. But where the distant peaks of Zagros serrated the
western horizon the sky was clear. Jupiter and Saturn rolled
together like drops of lambent flame about to blend in one.
As Artaban watched them, a steel-blue spark was born out
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Awakening & Selected Short Stories by Kate Chopin: in an absent-minded way, as she had walked one night at Grand Isle,
as if her thoughts had gone ahead of her and she was striving to
overtake them.
"You shouldn't have been there, Mrs. Pontellier," he said.
"That was no place for you. Adele is full of whims at such times.
There were a dozen women she might have had with her,
unimpressionable women. I felt that it was cruel, cruel. You
shouldn't have gone."
"Oh, well!" she answered, indifferently. "I don't know that
it matters after all. One has to think of the children some time
or other; the sooner the better."
Awakening & Selected Short Stories |
