| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: guillotine again? M. Pons is a contrairy old thing. You don't know
him. It is he that bothers me. There is not a more cross-grained man
alive; his relations are in the right of it, he is sly, revengeful,
and contrairy. . . . M. Magus has come, as I told you, and is waiting
to see you."
"Right! I will be there as soon as you. Your income depends upon the
price the collection will fetch. If it brings in eight hundred
thousand francs, you shall have fifteen hundred francs a year. It is a
fortune."
"Very well. I will tell them to value the things on their
consciences."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: The boudoir of the young countess was arranged to suit the taste of
the artist to whom Comte Adam entrusted the decoration of the house.
It is too full of pretty nothings to be a place for repose; one scarce
knows where to sit down among carved Chinese work-tables with their
myriads of fantastic figures inlaid in ivory, cups of yellow topaz
mounted on filagree, mosaics which inspire theft, Dutch pictures in
the style which Schinner has adopted, angels such as Steinbock
conceived but often could not execute, statuettes modelled by genius
pursued by creditors (the real explanation of the Arabian myth),
superb sketches by our best artists, lids of chests made into panels
alternating with fluted draperies of Italian silk, portieres hanging
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain: Early the third morning Tom Sawyer wisely went
poking among some old empty hogsheads down behind
the abandoned slaughter-house, and in one of them
he found the refugee. Huck had slept there; he had
just breakfasted upon some stolen odds and ends of
food, and was lying off, now, in comfort, with his pipe.
He was unkempt, uncombed, and clad in the same old
ruin of rags that had made him picturesque in the days
when he was free and happy. Tom routed him out,
told him the trouble he had been causing, and urged
him to go home. Huck's face lost its tranquil content,
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer |
