| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: her companion, showed Glennard the outline of his wife's profile.
The man was Flamel.
The blood rushed to Glennard's forehead. He sat up with a jerk
and pushed back the lid in the roof of the hansom; but when the
cabman bent down he dropped into his seat without speaking. Then,
becoming conscious of the prolonged interrogation of the lifted
lid, he called out--"Turn--drive back--anywhere--I'm in a hurry--"
As the cab swung round he caught a last glimpse of the two
figures. They had not moved; Alexa, with bent head, stood
listening.
"My God, my God--" he groaned.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: cousin's features in his mother's face. Madame Grandet was then for
the first time admitted into the terrible secret of the exchange made
by Charles against her daughter's treasure.
"You gave him all!" cried the poor mother, terrified. "What will you
say to your father on New Year's Day when he asks to see your gold?"
Eugenie's eyes grew fixed, and the two women lived through mortal
terror for more than half the morning. They were so troubled in mind
that they missed high Mass, and only went to the military service. In
three days the year 1819 would come to an end. In three days a
terrible drama would begin, a bourgeois tragedy, without poison, or
dagger, or the spilling of blood; but--as regards the actors in it--
Eugenie Grandet |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe: sides of the river from the Hermitage, and from over against it, quite
down to Blackwall, was entirely free; there had not one person died of
the plague in all Stepney parish, and not one on the south side of
Whitechappel Road, no, not in any parish; and yet the weekly bill was
that very week risen up to 1006.
It was a fortnight after this before the two brothers met again, and
then the case was a little altered, and the' plague was exceedingly
advanced and the number greatly increased; the bill was up at 2785,
and prodigiously increasing, though still both sides of the river, as
below, kept pretty well. But some began to die in Redriff, and about
five or six in Ratdiff Highway, when the sailmaker came to his
A Journal of the Plague Year |
