| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: "Quite so," replied Lousteau. "Madame de la Baudraye was greatly
annoyed by your choosing to follow her without being invited. Believe
me, to bore a woman is a bad way of courting her. Dinah has played you
a trick, and you have given her a laugh; it is more than any of you
has done in these thirteen years past. You owe that success to
Bianchon, for your cousin was the author of the Farce of the
'Manuscript.'--Will the horse get over it?" asked Lousteau with a
laugh, while Gatien was wondering whether to be angry or not.
"The horse!" said Gatien.
At this moment Madame de la Baudraye came in, dressed in a velvet
gown, and accompanied by her mother, who shot angry flashes at
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ebb-Tide by Stevenson & Osbourne: vigour. 'Refuse this, because you think yourself too honest, and
before a month's out you'll be jailed for a sneak-thief. I give
you the word fair. I can see it, Herrick, if you can't; you're
breaking down. Don't think, if you refuse this chance, that
you'll go on doing the evangelical; you're about through with
your stock; and before you know where you are, you'll be right
out on the other side. No, it's either this for you; or else it's
Caledonia. I bet you never were there, and saw those white,
shaved men, in their dust clothes and straw hats, prowling around
in gangs in the lamplight at Noumea; they look like wolves, and
they look like preachers, and they look like the sick; Hulsh is a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Agesilaus by Xenophon: Agesilaus formed a cordon of troops, round the property of friends and
foes alike, and so encamped.
Presently hearing that the enemy were in a state of disorder, the
result of every one holding his fellow responsible for what had
happened, he advanced without further stay on Sardis. Having arrived,
he fell to burning and ravaging the suburbs, while at the same time he
did not fail to make it known by proclamation that those who asked for
freedom should join his standard; or if there were any who claimed a
right of property in Asia he challenged them to come out and meet her
liberators in fair fight and let the sword decide between them.
Finding that no one ventured to come out to meet him, his march became
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