| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: one of those miracles of architecture such as Leonardo da Vinci
knew how to build,--mechanician, architect, painter, inventor of
hydraulics, indefatigable constructor of canals that he was?
Trained from their earliest years to the baldness of axiom and
formula, the youths who leave the Ecole have lost the sense of
elegance and ornament; a column seems to them useless; they return
to the point where art begins, and cling to the useful.
But all this is nothing in comparison to the real malady which is
undermining me. I feel an awful transformation going on within me;
I am conscious that my powers and my faculties, formerly
unnaturally taxed, are giving way. I am letting the prosaic
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: granite and hollowed a practicable mouth.
It was settled that the name of Falls River should be given to this
stream. Beyond, towards the north, the forest border was prolonged for a
space of nearly two miles; then the trees became scarcer, and beyond that
again the picturesque heights described a nearly straight line, which ran
north and south. On the contrary, all the part of the shore between Falls
River and Reptile End was a mass of wood, magnificent trees, some straight,
others bent, so that the long sea-swell bathed their roots. Now, it was
this coast, that is, all the Serpentine Peninsula, that was to be explored,
for this part of the shore offered a refuge to castaways, which the other
wild and barren side must have refused.
The Mysterious Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: Nevertheless, if you will have it so, go, and say, 'I, Peter Halket, sinner
among you all, who have desired women and gold, who have loved myself and
hated my fellow, I--'" The stranger looked down at him, and placed his
hand gently on his head. "Peter Simon Halket," he said, "a harder task I
give you than any which has been laid upon you. In that small spot where
alone on earth your will rules, bring there into being the kingdom today.
Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you. Walk ever forward,
looking not to the right hand or the left. Heed not what men shall say of
you. Succour the oppressed; deliver the captive. If thine enemy hunger,
feed him; if he is athirst give him drink."
A curious warmth and gladness stole over Peter Halket as he knelt; it was
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