| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: dazzling whiteness, a small head that she carried well, and the
immense advantage of inspiring love by the graciousness of her manner,
was one of those beings who keep all the promise of their beauty.
The pair, who for a few minutes were the centre of general
observation, did not for long give curiosity an opportunity of
exercising itself about them. The Colonel and the Countess seemed
perfectly to understand that accident had placed them in an awkward
position. Martial, as they came forward, had hastened to join the
group of men by the fireplace, that he might watch Madame de
Vaudremont with the jealous anxiety of the first flame of passion,
from behind the heads which formed a sort of rampart; a secret voice
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lucile by Owen Meredith: Took place when Bad News as yet travell'd by horse;
Ere the world, like a cockchafer, buzz'd on a wire,
Or Time was calcined by electrical fire;
Ere a cable went under the hoary Atlantic,
Or the word Telegram drove grammarians frantic.
VI.
He stopp'd here, aghast
At the change in his cousin, the hue of whose face
Had grown livid; and glassy his eyes fix'd on space.
"Courage, courage!" . . . said John, . . . "bear the blow like a man!"
And he caught the cold hand of Lord Alfred. There ran
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: and was to give him fifteen more as soon as they harvested
their first crop.
When I rode up to the Shimerdas' one bright windy afternoon
in April, Yulka ran out to meet me. It was to her, now, that I
gave reading lessons; Antonia was busy with other things.
I tied my pony and went into the kitchen where Mrs. Shimerda
was baking bread, chewing poppy seeds as she worked.
By this time she could speak enough English to ask me a great
many questions about what our men were doing in the fields.
She seemed to think that my elders withheld helpful information,
and that from me she might get valuable secrets. On this
My Antonia |
