| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tales and Fantasies by Robert Louis Stevenson: where he might expect it; but this much at least seemed
undeniable, that a private house was safer than a public inn.
Moved by these counsels, he turned at once to the Caledonian
Station, passed (not without alarm) into the bright lights of
the approach, redeemed his portmanteau from the cloak-room,
and was soon whirling in a cab along the Glasgow Road. The
change of movement and position, the sight of the lamps
twinkling to the rear, and the smell of damp and mould and
rotten straw which clung about the vehicle, wrought in him
strange alternations of lucidity and mortal giddiness.
'I have been drinking,' he discovered; 'I must go straight to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: right arm and her left leg; her face is marked with fearful scars,
which have bereft her of her beauty; her health, cruelly upset, leaves
her few days free from suffering. In short, she now never leaves the
Chartreuse of les Rouxey, where she leads a life wholly devoted to
religious practices.
PARIS, May 1842.
ADDENDUM
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Beauseant, Vicomtesse de
Father Goriot
The Deserted Woman
Albert Savarus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: "And you will permit me to accompany you?"
"Oh, certainly;" and both entered the chamber. Porthos was
stretched upon the bed; his face was violet rather than red;
his eyes were swelled; his mouth was wide open. The roaring
which escaped from the deep cavities of his chest made the
glass of the windows vibrate. To those developed and clearly
defined muscles starting from his face, to his hair matted
with sweat, to the energetic heaving of his chin and
shoulders, it was impossible to refuse a certain degree of
admiration. Strength carried to this point is semi-divine.
The Herculean legs and feet of Porthos had, by swelling,
Ten Years Later |
