| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: the smoke and jets of flame issuing from the chinks and crevices
of this door, which seemed to give admittance into the hill-side,
it resembled nothing so much as the private entrance to the
infernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delectable Mountains
were accustomed to show to pilgrims.
There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the
purpose of burning the white marble which composes a large part
of the substance of the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and
long deserted, with weeds growing in the vacant round of the
interior, which is open to the sky, and grass and wild-flowers
rooting themselves into the chinks of the stones, look already
The Snow Image |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: o'clock."
As for Dutocq, Cerizet saw him every day, for he was still his copying
clerk; he therefore gave him his invitation by word of mouth; but the
attentive reader must remark a difference in the hour named: "Quarter-
past-six, Rocher de Cancale," said Cerizet. It was evident, therefore,
that he wanted that fifteen minutes with Dutocq before the arrival of
la Peyrade.
These minutes the usurer proposed to employ in jockeying Dutocq in the
purchase of the notes; he fancied that if the proposition to buy them
were suddenly put before him without the slightest preparation it
might be more readily received. By not leaving the seller time to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: offerings, the merit and signification of which have never been
sufficiently explained. The lights on each altar and all the
candelabra in the choir were burning. Irregularly shed among a forest
of columns and arcades which supported the three naves of the
cathedral, the gleam of these masses of candles barely lighted the
immense building, because the strong shadows of the columns, projected
among the galleries, produced fantastic forms which increased the
darkness that already wrapped in gloom the arches, the vaulted
ceilings, and the lateral chapels, always sombre, even at mid-day.
The crowd presented effects that were no less picturesque. Certain
figures were so vaguely defined in the "chiaroscuro" that they seemed
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