| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: absolutely inexplicable to me. I did not believe my eyes, and
was entangled in conjectures like a fly in a spider's web. . . .
I suddenly realized that I was utterly alone on the whole vast
plain; that the night, which by now seemed inhospitable, was
peeping into my face and dogging my footsteps; all the sounds,
the cries of the birds, the whisperings of the trees, seemed
sinister, and existing simply to alarm my imagination. I dashed
on like a madman, and without realizing what I was doing I ran,
trying to run faster and faster. And at once I heard something to
which I had paid no attention before: that is, the plaintive
whining of the telegraph wires.
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: Paris! A private lunatic asylum performs its functions in the rue des
Batailles in the former dwelling of the Chevalier Pierre Bayard du
Terrail, once without fear and without reproach; a street has now been
built by the present bourgeois administration through the site of the
hotel Necker. Old Paris is departing, following its kings who
abandoned it. For one masterpiece of architecture saved from
destruction by a Polish princess (the hotel Lambert, Ile Saint-Louis,
bought and occupied by the Princess Czartoriska) how many little
palaces have fallen, like this dwelling of Petitot, into the hands of
such as Thuillier.
Here follows the causes which made Mademoiselle Thuillier the owner of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: There wasn't much talking done. At night we had our
marathon-obstacle race; we "stayed not for brake and we stopped
not for stone," and swam whatever water was too deep to wade and
could not be got around; but that was only necessary twice. By
day, sleep, sound and sweet. Mighty lucky it was that we could
live off the country as we did. Even that margin of forest seemed
rich in foodstuffs.
But Jeff thoughtfully suggested that that very thing showed
how careful we should have to be, as we might run into some stalwart
group of gardeners or foresters or nut-gatherers at any minute.
Careful we were, feeling pretty sure that if we did not make good
Herland |
