| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: to her inexperienced mind that all conversation was interrupted
by appeals for their interpretation made to the oracular nurse.
Dorothea sat by in her widow's dress, with an expression which rather
provoked Celia, as being much too sad; for not only was baby quite well,
but really when a husband had been so dull and troublesome while
he lived, and besides that had--well, well! Sir James, of course,
had told Celia everything, with a strong representation how important
it was that Dorothea should not know it sooner than was inevitable.
But Mr. Brooke had been right in predicting that Dorothea would not
long remain passive where action had been assigned to her; she knew
the purport of her husband's will made at the time of their marriage,
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: given to the ministerial divinities! how many visits of self-interest
paid! At last, thanks to her boldness, Madame Rabourdin heard the hour
strike when she was to have twenty thousand francs a year instead of
eight thousand.
"And I shall have managed well," she said to herself. "I have had to
make a little outlay; but these are times when hidden merit is
overlooked, whereas if a man keeps himself well in sight before the
world, cultivates social relations and extends them, he succeeds.
After all, ministers and their friends interest themselves only in the
people they see; but Rabourdin knows nothing of the world! If I had
not cajoled those three deputies they might have wanted La
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: " 'None but fools and invalids can find pleasure in shuffling cards
all evening long to find out whether they shall win a few pence at the
end. None but driveling idiots could spend time in inquiring into all
that is happening around them, whether Madame Such-an-One slept single
on her couch or in company, whether she has more blood than lymph,
more temperament than virtue. None but the dupes, who fondly imagine
that they are useful to their like, can interest themselves in laying
down rules for political guidance amid events which neither they nor
any one else foresees, nor ever will foresee. None but simpletons can
delight in talking about stage players and repeating their sayings;
making the daily promenade of a caged animal over a rather larger
Gobseck |
