| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: iron and firewood. The household furniture would have brought in a
thousand francs at most. The whole personal property of Sechard junior
therefore represented the sum of four thousand francs; and Cachan and
Petit-Claud made claims for seven thousand francs in costs already
incurred, to say nothing of expenses to come, for the blossom gave
promise of fine fruits enough, as the reader will shortly see. Surely
the lawyers of France and Navarre, nay, even of Normandy herself, will
not refuse Petit-Claud his meed of admiration and respect? Surely,
too, kind hearts will give Marion and Kolb a tear of sympathy?
All through the war Kolb sat on a chair in the doorway, acting as
watch-dog, when David had nothing else for him to do. It was Kolb who
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: of temper, now flaming up in white-hot indignation and a noble pity
for himself.
He paced his apartment like a leopard. There was danger in Otto,
for a flash. Like a pistol, he could kill at one moment, and the
next he might he kicked aside. But just then, as he walked the long
floors in his alternate humours, tearing his handkerchief between
his hands, he was strung to his top note, every nerve attent. The
pistol, you might say, was charged. And when jealousy from time to
time fetched him a lash across the tenderest of his feeling, and
sent a string of her fire-pictures glancing before his mind's eye,
the contraction of his face was even dangerous. He disregarded
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart: match. The groan had not been repeated.
I braced myself against the table and struck the match sharply
against the sole of my shoe. It flickered faintly and went out.
And then, without the slightest warning, another dish went off the
table. It fell with a thousand splinterings; the very air seemed
broken into crashing waves of sound. I stood still, braced
against the table, holding the red end of the dying match, and
listened. I had not long to wait; the groan came again, and I
recognized it, the cry of a dog in straits. I breathed again.
"Come, old fellow," I said. "Come on, old man. "Let's have a look
at you."
The Man in Lower Ten |
