| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: she must of necessity become the prey of wild beasts. I then
determined to bury her, and wait my own doom upon her grave. I
was already, indeed, so near my end from the combined effect of
long fasting and grief, that it was with the greatest difficulty
I could support myself standing. I was obliged to have recourse
to the liquors which I had brought with me, and these restored
sufficient strength to enable me to set about my last sad office.
From the sandy nature of the soil there was little trouble in
opening the ground. I broke my sword and used it for the
purpose; but my bare hands were of greater service. I dug a deep
grave, and there deposited the idol of my heart, after having
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: offensively, and was becoming so ugly and deaf and tedious that he
ought to return thanks for her death. The bishop had emancipated his
pupil in 1811. Then, when the mother of M. de Marsay remarried, the
priest chose, in a family council, one of those honest dullards,
picked out by him through the windows of his confessional, and charged
him with the administration of the fortune, the revenues of which he
was willing to apply to the needs of the community, but of which he
wished to preserve the capital.
Towards the end of 1814, then, Henri de Marsay had no sentiment of
obligation in the world, and was as free as an unmated bird. Although
he had lived twenty-two years he appeared to be barely seventeen. As a
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Oakdale Affair by Edgar Rice Burroughs: of every city of the country. Assuming a stern and arro-
gant expression, or rather what he thought to be such,
he posed, mentally, for the newspaper cameramen; and
such is the power of association of ideas that he was
presently strolling nonchalantly before a battery of mo-
tion picture machines. "Gee!" he murmured, "wont the
other fellers be sore! I s'ppose Pinkerton'll send for me
'bout the first thing 'n' offer me twenty fi' dollars a week,
er mebbie more 'n thet. Gol durn, ef I don't hold out
fer thirty! Gee!" Words, thoughts even, failed him.
As the others planned they rather neglected Willie
The Oakdale Affair |
