| 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: fire. By and by they began throwing white roses, and that morning
flush passed away. At last one of the years threw a snow-ball, and
after that no year let the poor girls pass without throwing snow-
balls. And then came rougher missiles, - ice and stones; and from
time to time an arrow whistled, and down went one of the poor
girls. So there are but few left; and we don't call those few
GIRLS, but -
Ah, me! Here am I groaning just as the old Greek sighed AI, AI!
and the old Roman, EHEU! I have no doubt we should die of shame
and grief at the indignities offered us by age, if it were not that
we see so many others as badly or worse off than ourselves. We
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: by ruining himself if he goes on like this."
The Chevalier and Mlle. d'Esgrignon thought these words perfectly
simple and natural, absurd as they would have sounded to any other
listener. So far from seeing anything ridiculous in the speech, they
were both very much touched by a look of something like anguish in the
old noble's face. Some dark premonition seemed to weigh upon M.
d'Esgrignon at that moment, some glimmering of an insight into the
changed times. He went to the settee by the fireside and sat down,
forgetting that Chesnel would be there before long; that Chesnel, of
whom he could not bring himself to ask anything.
Just then the Marquis d'Esgrignon looked exactly as any imagination
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: eloquence but with a great effort at amiability. "You need not even
understand it. I continue: with such disposition what prevents
women--to use the phrase an old boatswain of my acquaintance applied
descriptively to his captain--what prevents them from "coming on
deck and playing hell with the ship" generally, is that something in
them precise and mysterious, acting both as restraint and as
inspiration; their femininity in short which they think they can get
rid of by trying hard, but can't, and never will. Therefore we may
conclude that, for all their enterprises, the world is and remains
safe enough. Feeling, in my character of a lover of peace, soothed
by that conclusion I prepared myself to enjoy a fine day.
Chance |
