| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: Rokoff from the French prison where they had hoped he was
permanently confined.
As Tarzan and his wife stood planning the wisest course to pursue,
the telephone bell rang in the library at their right. Tarzan quickly
answered the call in person.
"Lord Greystoke?" asked a man's voice at the other end of the line.
"Yes."
"Your son has been stolen," continued the voice, "and I alone
may help you to recover him. I am conversant with the plot
of those who took him. In fact, I was a party to it, and was
to share in the reward, but now they are trying to ditch me,
The Beasts of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: informant belongs to the genus Spiteful.
An Attache to an embassy: "Madame Firmiani? Isn't she from Antwerp? I
saw her ten years ago in Rome; she was very handsome then."
Individuals of the species Attache have a mania for talking in the
style of Talleyrand. Their wit is often so refined that the point is
imperceptible; they are like billiard-players who avoid hitting the
ball with consummate dexterity. These individuals are usually
taciturn, and when they talk it is only about Spain, Vienna, Italy, or
Petersburg. Names of countries act like springs in their mind; press
them, and the ringing of their changes begins.
"That Madame Firmiani sees a great deal of the faubourg Saint-Germain,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: hearts; this happiness of nurturing a secret hatred in the face of
men, and of being always in arms against this; this ability to
withdraw to the sanctuary of self with one idea more than even the
most remarkable of men could have,--this religion of pleasure and
egotism cast so strong a spell over Thirteen men that they revived the
society of Jesuits to the profit of the devil.
It was horrible and stupendous; but the compact was made, and it
lasted precisely because it appeared to be so impossible.
There was, therefore, in Paris a brotherhood of THIRTEEN, who belonged
to each other absolutely, but ignored themselves as absolutely before
the world. At night they met, like conspirators, hiding no thought,
Ferragus |
