| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: entered the courtyard did it stand revealed as a light spring
britchka. And as it came to a halt, there leapt on to the verandah of
the mansion an individual of respectable exterior, and possessed of
the art of moving with the neatness and alertness of a military man.
Upon this Tientietnikov's heart stood still. He was unused to
receiving visitors, and for the moment conceived the new arrival to be
a Government official, sent to question him concerning an abortive
society to which he had formerly belonged. (Here the author may
interpolate the fact that, in Tientietnikov's early days, the young
man had become mixed up in a very absurd affair. That is to say, a
couple of philosophers belonging to a regiment of hussars had,
Dead Souls |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: decided his fate. Mlle. Michonneau had very nearly made up her
mind to warn the convict and to throw herself on his generosity,
with the idea of making a better bargain for herself by helping
him to escape that night; but as it was, she went out escorted by
Poiret in search of the famous chief of detectives in the Petite
Rue Saint-Anne, still thinking that it was the district
superintendent--one Gondureau--with whom she had to do. The head
of the department received his visitors courteously. There was a
little talk, and the details were definitely arranged. Mlle.
Michonneau asked for the draught that she was to administer in
order to set about her investigation. But the great man's evident
Father Goriot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: and appointed him to fill it, at a period of the early ages which
few living men
24 THE SCARLET LETTER
can now remember. This Inspector, when I first knew him, was a
man of fourscore years, or thereabouts, and certainly one of the
The Scarlet Letter |
