| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: marvels to the fancy of modern romancers.
The ground floor of Tirechair's house consisted of a large hall, where
his wife's business was carried on, through which the lodgers were
obliged to pass on their way to their own rooms up a stairway like a
mill-ladder. Behind this were a kitchen and a bedroom, with a view
over the Seine. A tiny garden, reclaimed from the waters, displayed at
the foot of this modest dwelling its beds of cabbages and onions, and
a few rose-bushes, sheltered by palings, forming a sort of hedge. A
little structure of lath and mud served as a kennel for a big dog, the
indispensable guardian of so lonely a dwelling. Beyond this kennel was
a little plot, where the hens cackled whose eggs were sold to the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: off," he used to say, condemning all the charities of the well-fed
people who sit on the back of the working classes, continue to
enjoy all the benefits of their privileged position, and merely
give from their superfluity.
He did not believe in the good of such charity and considered
it a form of self-hallucination, all the more harmful because
people thereby acquire a sort of moral right to continue that idle,
aristocratic life and get to go on increasing the poverty of the
people.
In the autumn of 1890 my father thought of writing an article
on the famine, which had then spread over nearly all Russia.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: The officer bowed, and, without making any reply, followed
in the steps of his master.
There was an immense crowd in the square and about the
neighbourhood of the prison. But the dragoons of Tilly still
kept it in check with the same success and with the same
firmness.
It was not long before the Count heard the increasing din of
the approaching multitude, the first ranks of which rushed
on with the rapidity of a cataract.
At the same time he observed the paper, which was waving
above the surface of clenched fists and glittering arms.
The Black Tulip |
