| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: I do not know but that Moliere in his lighter mood would not have said
of it, as of Cyrano de Bergerac's best--'This is mine.' Richelieu
himself was not more complete when he wrote to the princess waiting
for him in the Palais Royal--'Stay there, my queen, to charm the
scullion lads.' At the same time, Charles Edward's humor is less
biting. I am not sure that this kind of wit was known among the Greeks
and Romans. Plato, possibly, upon a closer inspection approaches it,
but from the austere and musical side--"
"No more of that jargon," the Marquise broke in, "in print it may be
endurable; but to have it grating upon my ears is a punishment which I
do not in the least deserve."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: By the first of December, Mrs. Redburn had so far recovered her
health as to be able to take charge of the manufacturing part of
the business, and Katy was permitted to go to school, though she
supplied the girls in the morning and at noon, and settled all
their accounts.
One day she received a call from Michael, Mrs. Gordon's man,
requesting her attendance in Temple Street. She obeyed the
summons; but when she met Mrs. Gordon and Grace, she was alarmed
to see how coldly and reproachfully they looked upon her.
"I have heard a very bad story about you, Katy," said Mrs.
Gordon.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: upon my word, I didn't dare to ask him to my wedding," said Wilhelm
Schwab. "I am going to be married--"
"How?" demanded Schmucke.
"Oh! quite properly," returned Wilhelm Schwab, taking Schmucke's
quaint inquiry for a gibe, of which that perfect Christian was quite
incapable.
"Come, gentlemen, take your places!" called Pons, looking round at his
little army, as the stage manager's bell rang for the overture.
The piece was a dramatized fairy tale, a pantomime called /The Devil's
Betrothed/, which ran for two hundred nights. In the interval, after
the first act, Wilhelm Schwab and Schmucke were left alone in the
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