| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: sanctified by the presence and scent of the most gorgeous lilac masses?
I did, and grew in grace every day, though I have never liked it since.
How often now, oppressed by the necessity of assisting at three
dining-room meals daily, two of which are conducted by the functionaries
held indispensable to a proper maintenance of the family dignity,
and all of which are pervaded by joints of meat, how often do I
think of my <10> salad days, forty in number, and of the blessedness
of being alone as I was then alone!
And then the evenings, when the workmen had all gone and the house
was left to emptiness and echoes, and the old housekeeper had gathered
up her rheumatic limbs into her bed, and my little room in quite another
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: the castle towers razed to the level of the roof. The descendant of
the Franks looked for the missing Gothic turrets and the picturesque
weather vanes which used to rise above them; and his eyes turned to
the sky, as if asking of heaven the reason of this social upheaval. No
one but Chesnel could understand the profound anguish of the great
d'Esgrignon, now known as Citizen Carol. For a long while the Marquis
stood in silence, drinking in the influences of the place, the ancient
home of his forefathers, with the air that he breathed; then he flung
out a most melancholy exclamation.
"Chesnel," he said, "we will come back again some day when the
troubles are over; I could not bring myself to live here until the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: quivered as she spoke. "You really mean--THAT?" she said.
I nodded.
"I never dreamt."
"I never meant you to dream."
"And that is why--we've been apart?"
I thought. "I suppose it is."
"Why have you told me now?"
"Those rumours. I didn't want any one else to tell you."
"Or else it wouldn't have mattered?"
"No."
She turned her eyes from me to the fire. Then for a moment she
|
