| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: perpetuated, I would gladly give five hundred pistoles to see
myself as like as that is to my dear old Rouville."
At this hint the Baroness looked at her young friend and smiled,
while her face lighted up with an expression of sudden gratitude.
Hippolyte suspected that the old admiral wished to offer him the
price of both portraits while paying for his own. His pride as an
artist, no less than his jealousy perhaps, took offence at the
thought, and he replied:
"Monsieur, if I were a portrait-painter I should not have done
this one."
The admiral bit his lip, and sat down to cards.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: journey, but the colonel answered only in monosyllables, and the
conversation soon flagged. At last, however, the bumping of the
road was exchanged for the crisp smoothness of a gravel-drive,
and the carriage came to a stand. Colonel Lysander Stark sprang
out, and, as I followed after him, pulled me swiftly into a porch
which gaped in front of us. We stepped, as it were, right out of
the carriage and into the hall, so that I failed to catch the
most fleeting glance of the front of the house. The instant that
I had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily behind us,
and I heard faintly the rattle of the wheels as the carriage
drove away.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde: [Enter the Headman, who takes his stand behind GUIDO.]
SECOND CITIZEN
Yon be the headsman then! O Lord! Is the axe sharp, think you?
FIRST CITIZEN
Ay! sharper than thy wits are; but the edge is not towards him,
mark you.
SECOND CITIZEN
[scratching his neck]
I' faith, I like it not so near.
FIRST CITIZEN
Tut, thou need'st not be afraid; they never cut the heads of common
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