| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: told that delicious anecdote of a friend of Laffitte the banker. A
national fund had been started to give back to Laffitte the mansion in
which the Revolution of 1830 was brewed, and this friend appeared at
the offices of the fund with, 'Here are five francs, give me a hundred
sous change!'--A caricature was made of it.--It was once La
Palferine's misfortune, in judicial style, to make a young girl a
mother. The girl, not a very simple innocent, confessed all to her
mother, a respectable matron, who hurried forthwith to La Palferine
and asked what he meant to do.
" 'Why, madame,' said he, 'I am neither a surgeon nor a midwife.'
"She collapsed, but three or four years later she returned to the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: "if he needs any one, tell me, show me what to do."
She began to sob, and Horton hurried away.
When he came back at four o'clock in the
afternoon he was carrying his hat in his hand,
and Winifred knew as soon as she saw him
that they had found Bartley. She opened the
carriage door before he reached her and
stepped to the ground.
Horton put out his hand as if to hold her
back and spoke pleadingly: "Won't you drive
up to my house, Mrs. Alexander? They will
Alexander's Bridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne: her way into the garden, gathered some of the most perfect of the
roses, and brought them to her chamber.
Little Phoebe was one of those persons who possess, as their
exclusive patrimony, the gift of practical arrangement. It
is a kind of natural magic that enables these favored ones to
bring out the hidden capabilities of things around them; and
particularly to give a look of comfort and habitableness to any
place which, for however brief a period, may happen to be their
home. A wild hut of underbrush, tossed together by wayfarers
through the primitive forest, would acquire the home aspect by
one night's lodging of such a woman, and would retain it long
House of Seven Gables |
