| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: would be seen no more; but before shutting herself up, never to go out
unless into the country, she was bent on being present at the first
performance of a play by Nathan. This literary solemnity occupied the
minds of the two thousand persons who regard themselves as
constituting "all Paris." Dinah, who had never been at a first night's
performance, was very full of natural curiosity. She had by this time
arrived at such a pitch of affection for Lousteau that she gloried in
her misconduct; she exerted a sort of savage strength to defy the
world; she was determined to look it in the face without turning her
head aside.
She dressed herself to perfection, in a style suited to her delicate
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tapestried Chamber by Walter Scott: victories. He exulted so much in the conquest which he
anticipated, that, to nerve his son to still bolder exertions, he
conferred upon him, as champion of his clan and province, the
celebrated weapon which he had hitherto retained in his own
custody.
This was not all. When the day of combat arrived, the Laird's
Jock, in spite of his daughter's affectionate remonstrances,
determined, though he had not left his bed for two years, to be a
personal witness of the duel. His will was still a law to his
people, who bore him on their shoulders, wrapped in plaids and
blankets, to the spot where the combat was to take place, and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: the tropics), a handful of whites of varying nationality, mostly
French officials, German and Scottish merchant clerks, and the
agents of the opium monopoly. There are besides three tavern-
keepers, the shrewd Scot who runs the cotton gin-mill, two white
ladies, and a sprinkling of people 'on the beach' - a South Sea
expression for which there is no exact equivalent. It is a
pleasant society, and a hospitable. But one man, who was often to
be seen seated on the logs at the pier-head, merits a word for the
singularity of his history and appearance. Long ago, it seems, he
fell in love with a native lady, a High Chiefess in Ua-pu. She, on
being approached, declared she could never marry a man who was
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