| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: twitched her line from the water when the fish had not bitten, was
perhaps the electric shock which struck upon the heart of the
magistrate, hitherto irreproachable. No one can say, perhaps, how the
thing really came about. But I ought to remark that during the
interregnum that occurred between the making of socks and night-caps
and the assumption of municipal duties, Beauvisage himself had
practised the art of fishing with a line with distinguished success.
Probably it occurred to him that the poor young lady, having more
ardor than science, was not going the right way to work, and the
thought of improving her method may have been the real cause of his
apparent degeneracy. However that may be, it is certain that, crossing
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: Chapeloud was so true a friend to me,' she said, 'that I cannot
consent to part with his picture.' As for me," added Troubert, "if it
were mine I would not yield it. My feelings to my late friend were so
faithful that I should feel my right to his portrait was above that of
others."
"Well, there's no need to quarrel over a bad picture." ("I care as
little about it as you do," thought she.) "Keep it, and I will have a
copy made of it. I take some credit to myself for having averted this
deplorable lawsuit; and I have gained, personally, the pleasure of
your acquaintance. I hear you have a great talent for whist. You will
forgive a woman for curiosity," she said, smiling. "If you will come
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Edingburgh Picturesque Notes by Robert Louis Stevenson: tried. It has been my fortune, in this anonymous
accidental way, to watch more than one of these downward
travellers for some stages on the road to ruin. One man
must have been upwards of sixty before I first observed
him, and he made then a decent, personable figure in
broad-cloth of the best. For three years he kept falling
- grease coming and buttons going from the square-skirted
coat, the face puffing and pimpling, the shoulders
growing bowed, the hair falling scant and grey upon his
head; and the last that ever I saw of him, he was
standing at the mouth of an entry with several men in
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