| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: The personage thus addressed, one of the most important in the
household, though the least troublesome inasmuch as he had ceased to
bark and left the talking to his mistress, turned his little eyes,
sunk in rolls of fat, upon Birotteau. Then he closed them peevishly.
To explain the misery of the poor vicar it should be said that being
endowed by nature with an empty and sonorous loquacity, like the
resounding of a football, he was in the habit of asserting, without
any medical reason to back him, that speech favored digestion.
Mademoiselle Gamard, who believed in this hygienic doctrine, had not
as yet refrained, in spite of their coolness, from talking at meals;
though, for the last few mornings, the vicar had been forced to strain
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Stories From the Old Attic by Robert Harris: The Boy and the Vulture
A young boy was playing in the desert with a bow and arrow he had
made, when a vulture, always looking for a tender meal, saw him from
afar. The bird flew over and, seeing that the arrow was only a
barren stick, swooped down and pecked at the boy. "Why don't you
shoot me if you don't like my pecking?" it taunted. The boy shot
his arrow repeatedly, but the bird was too quick, and the arrow
always missed.
Finally, exhausted from chasing the arrow and deflecting the bird,
the boy sat down in the sparse shade of a dead tree. The vulture,
lighting on one of the dry branches above the boy, sat triumphantly
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: Clemence now enjoyed this day as though they forboded it to be the
last of their loving life. What name shall we give to that mysterious
power which hastens the steps of travellers before the storm is
visible; which makes the life and beauty of the dying so resplendent,
and fills the parting soul with joyous projects for days before death
comes; which tells the midnight student to fill his lamp when it
shines brightest; and makes the mother fear the thoughtful look cast
upon her infant by an observing man? We all are affected by this
influence in the great catastrophes of life; but it has never yet been
named or studied; it is something more than presentiment, but not as
yet clear vision.
Ferragus |
