| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: many years, and did not like to trust my recollection. But I had
it in memory, and even noted down, as one of the finest trees in
symmetry and beauty I had ever seen. I have received a document,
signed by two citizens of a neighboring town, certified by the
postmaster and a selectman, and these again corroborated,
reinforced, and sworn to by a member of that extraordinary college-
class to which it is the good fortune of my friend the Professor to
belong, who, though he has FORMERLY been a member of Congress, is,
I believe, fully worthy of confidence. The tree "girts" eighteen
and a half feet, and spreads over a hundred, and is a real beauty.
I hope to meet my friend under its branches yet; if we don't have
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: doesn't transgress the limits of my conscience and my official duties,
you understand! I am your man."
"You are an honest fellow," said Laurent, shaking his hand. . . .
"Paquita Valdes is, no doubt, the mistress of the Marquis de San-Real,
the friend of King Ferdinand. Only an old Spanish mummy of eighty
years is capable of taking such precautions," said Henri, when his
/valet de chambre/ had related the result of his researches.
"Monsieur," said Laurent, "unless he takes a balloon no one can get
into that hotel."
"You are a fool! Is it necessary to get into the hotel to have
Paquita, when Paquita can get out of it?"
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter
struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment
she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold,--
then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person
of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies,
bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he
had anticipated.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast.
The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself
crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a
wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could
The Fall of the House of Usher |
