| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: entrance to the bar-room.
It was in this apartment, I presume, that the ancient governors
held their levees, with vice-regal pomp, surrounded by the
military men, the councillors, the judges, and other officers of
the crown, while all the loyalty of the province thronged to do
them honor. But the room, in its present condition, cannot boast
even of faded magnificence. The panelled wainscot is covered with
dingy paint, and acquires a duskier hue from the deep shadow into
which the Province House is thrown by the brick block that shuts
it in from Washington Street. A ray of sunshine never visits this
apartment any more than the glare of the festal torches, which
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: "I cannot help myself."
"Belle-Rose is worth six hundred thousand francs."
"Natalie will buy it in; I have advised her to do so."
"I might push the price to seven hundred thousand, and the farms are
worth a hundred thousand each."
"Then if the house in Bordeaux can be sold for two hundred thousand--"
"Solonet will give more than that; he wants it. He is retiring with a
handsome property made by gambling on the Funds. He has sold his
practice for three hundred thousand francs, and marries a mulatto
woman. God knows how she got her money, but they say it amounts to
millions. A notary gambling in stocks! a notary marrying a black
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: monarchy, in August, 1830. He had joined the cortege of Charles X. at
Nonancourt, and piously escorted it to Cherbourg with the Troisvilles,
Casterans, d'Esgrignons, Verneuils, etc. The old gentleman had taken
with him fifty thousand francs,--the sum to which his savings then
amounted. He offered them to one of the faithful friends of the king
for transmission to his master, speaking of his approaching death, and
declaring that the money came originally from the goodness of the
king, and, moreover, that the property of the last of the Valois
belonged of right to the crown. It is not known whether the fervor of
his zeal conquered the reluctance of the Bourbon, who abandoned his
fine kingdom of France without carrying away with him a farthing, and
|
