| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: become of one of my friends, whom we were obliged to leave here
about a dozen days ago?"
"A handsome young man, three- or four-and-twenty years old, mild,
amiable, and well made?"
"That is he--wounded in the shoulder."
"Just so. Well, monsieur, he is still here."
"Ah, PARDIEU! My dear dame," said D'Artagnan, springing from his
horse, and throwing the bridle to Planchet, "you restore me to
life; where is this dear Aramis? Let me embrace him, I am in a
hurry to see him again."
"Pardon, monsieur, but I doubt whether he can see you at this
The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: voice, and helped out by the Doctor's interrogations, contrived at
last to put him in possession of the facts. But the conversation
between the Prince and Geraldine he altogether omitted, as he had
understood little of its purport, and had no idea that it was in
any way related to his own misadventure.
"Alas!" cried Dr. Noel, "I am much abused, or you have fallen
innocently into the most dangerous hands in Europe. Poor boy, what
a pit has been dug for your simplicity! into what a deadly peril
have your unwary feet been conducted! This man," he said, "this
Englishman, whom you twice saw, and whom I suspect to be the soul
of the contrivance, can you describe him? Was he young or old?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: impertinence of the young man's speeches.
Eugene colored. A man must be more than twenty-five years of age not
to blush at being taxed with a fidelity that women laugh at--in order,
perhaps, not to show that they envy it. However, he replied with
tolerable self-possession:--
"Why not, madame?"
Such are the blunders we all make at twenty-five.
This speech caused a violent commotion in Madame de Listomere's bosom;
but Rastignac did not yet know how to analyze a woman's face by a
rapid or sidelong glance. The lips of the marquise paled, but that was
all. She rang the bell for wood, and so constrained Rastignac to rise
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