| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: have on hand the fig-leaf which our mother Eve bequeathed to her.
Consequently, when Eugene, interpreting, in favor of his vanity, the
refusal to admit him, bowed to Madame de Listomere in a tolerably
intentional manner, she veiled her thoughts behind one of those
feminine smiles which are more impenetrable than the words of a king.
"Are you unwell, madame? You denied yourself to visitors."
"I am well, monsieur."
"Perhaps you were going out?"
"Not at all."
"You expected some one?"
"No one."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom,
Ernest was to discourse to an assemblage of the neighboring
inhabitants in the open air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still
talking together as they went along, proceeded to the spot. It
was a small nook among the hills, with a gray precipice behind,
the stern front of which was relieved by the pleasant foliage of
many creeping plants that made a tapestry for the naked rock, by
hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At a small
elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure,
there appeared a niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure,
with freedom for such gestures as spontaneously accompany earnest
The Snow Image |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: more interesting. It has done me, in my two winters' Alpine exile,
much good; so much, that I hope to leave it now for ever, but would
not be understood to boast. In my present unpardonably crazy
state, any cold might send me skipping, either back to Davos, or
further off. Let us hope not. It is dear; a little dreary; very
far from many things that both my taste and my needs prompt me to
seek; and altogether not the place that I should choose of my free
will.
I am chilled by your description of the man in question, though I
had almost argued so much from his cold and undigested volume. If
the republication does not interfere with my publisher, it will not
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