| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: little while since; but just now I feel calm. I want to know
everything."
"What calm!" I said to myself as I saw the ghastly pallor of her
face contrasting with her brown hair, and heard the guttural
tones of her voice. The havoc wrought in her drawn features
filled me with dumb amazement.
Those few hours had bleached her; she had lost a woman's last
glow of autumn color. Her eyes were red and swollen, nothing of
their beauty remained, nothing looked out of them save her bitter
and exceeding grief; it was as if a gray cloud covered the place
through which the sun had shone.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: she ever saw.
What reason either could she have to guess that Whitby cliff had
once been coral-mud, at the bottom of the sea? No more reason, my
dear child, than you would have to guess that this stone had been
coral-mud likewise, if I did not teach you so,--or rather, try to
make you teach yourself so.
No. I say it again. If you wish to learn, I will only teach you
on condition that you do not laugh at, or despise, those good and
honest and able people who do not know or care about these things,
because they have other things to think of: like old John out
there ploughing. He would not believe you--he would hardly
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: brother the king of England has not about him the powerful
genius who has saved me, it is for that, I say, that I wish
to conciliate the aid of that same genius, and beg you to
extend your arm over his head, well assured, monsieur le
cardinal, that your hand, by touching him only, would know
how to replace upon his brow the crown which fell at the
foot of his father's scaffold."
"Sire," replied Mazarin, "I thank you for your good opinion
with regard to myself, but we have nothing to do yonder:
they are a set of madmen who deny God, and cut off the heads
of their kings. They are dangerous, observe, sire, and
Ten Years Later |
