| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: and, finally, the place he came from, his lawsuit, etc.
Gazonal at first thought it was a hoax prepared by his companions; but
the absolute impossibility of such a conspiracy appeared to him almost
as soon as the idea itself, and he sat speechless before that truly
infernal power, the incarnation of which borrowed from humanity a form
which the imagination of painters and poets has throughout all ages
regarded as the most awful of created things,--namely, a toothless,
hideous, wheezing hag, with cold lips, flattened nose, and whitish
eyes. The pupils of those eyes had brightened, through them rushed a
ray,--was it from the depths of the future or from hell?
Gazonal asked, interrupting the old creature, of what use the toad and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Modeste Mignon by Honore de Balzac: has too much elevation of thought not to put himself on the nobler
side of questions and things. His poetry, which takes the town by
storm on all profitable occasions, really injures the man as a poet;
for he is not without mind, but his talent prevents him from
developing it; he is overweighted by his reputation, and is always
aiming to make himself appear greater than he has the credit of being.
Thus, as often happens, the man is entirely out of keeping with the
products of his thought. The author of these naive, caressing, tender
little lyrics, these calm idylls pure and cold as the surface of a
lake, these verses so essentially feminine, is an ambitious little
creature in a tightly buttoned frock-coat, with the air of a diplomat
Modeste Mignon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner: At last the time for my going came. I was to leave the next day. Some one
I knew gave a party in my honour, to which all the village was invited.
It was midwinter. There was nothing in the gardens but a few dahlias and
chrysanthemums, and I suppose that for two hundred miles round there was
not a rose to be bought for love or money. Only in the garden of a friend
of mine, in a sunny corner between the oven and the brick wall, there was a
rose tree growing which had on it one bud. It was white, and it had been
promised to the fair haired girl to wear at the party.
The evening came; when I arrived and went to the waiting-room, to take off
my mantle, I found the girl there already. She was dressed in pure white,
with her great white arms and shoulders showing, and her bright hair
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