| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: he did not fall into one of those fits of epileptic self-love to which
strong natures give themselves up, and which sometimes end in
challenges sent to the director or the secretary of the Museum, or
even by threats of assassination. Fougeres quietly fetched his canvas,
wrapped it in a handkerchief, and brought it home, vowing in his heart
that he would still make himself a great painter. He placed his
picture on the easel, and went to one of his former masters, a man of
immense talent,--to Schinner, a kind and patient artist, whose triumph
at that year's Salon was complete. Fougeres asked him to come and
criticise the rejected work. The great painter left everything and
went at once. When poor Fougeres had placed the work before him
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen: But do not stay here to be cold."
He went; but there was no reading, no China, no composure
for Fanny. He had told her the most extraordinary,
the most inconceivable, the most unwelcome news;
and she could think of nothing else. To be acting!
After all his objections--objections so just and so public!
After all that she had heard him say, and seen him look,
and known him to be feeling. Could it be possible?
Edmund so inconsistent! Was he not deceiving himself?
Was he not wrong? Alas! it was all Miss Crawford's doing.
She had seen her influence in every speech, and was miserable.
Mansfield Park |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the
dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance,
he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and
lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed.
With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus going the
rounds of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied up
in a cotton handkerchief.
That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his
rustic patrons, who are apt to considered the costs of schooling
a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones he had
various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
