| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: successful man blushes to meet. As he rolls through the streets of
Paris in his carriage, it is not pleasant to see his boyhood's chum
down at heel, with a coat of many improbable colors and trousers
innocent of straps, and a head full of soaring speculations on too
grand a scale to tempt shy, easily scared capital. Moreover, this
friend of his youth, Gaudissart by name, had done not a little in the
past towards founding the fortunes of the great house of Popinot.
Popinot, now a Count and a peer of France, after twice holding a
portfolio had no wish to shake off "the Illustrious Gaudissart." Quite
otherwise. The pomps and vanities of the Court of the Citizen-King had
not spoiled the sometime druggist's kind heart; he wished to put his
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle: in one day."
"Then give me thy hand, Allan," cried Robin, "and let me
tell thee, I swear by the bright hair of Saint AElfrida
that this time two days hence Ellen a Dale shall be thy wife.
I will seek this same Friar of Fountain Abbey tomorrow day,
and I warrant I will get upon the soft side of him, even if I
have to drub one soft."
At this Will Scarlet laughed again. "Be not too sure of that,
good uncle," quoth he, "nevertheless, from what I know of him,
I think this Curtal Friar will gladly join two such fair lovers,
more especially if there be good eating and drinking afoot thereafter."
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: the side of an open triangular space surrounded by dark and
mysterious houses, temples of petty commerce emptied of traders for
the night. Only a fruiterer's stall at the corner made a violent
blaze of light and colour. Beyond all was black, and the few
people passing in that direction vanished at one stride beyond the
glowing heaps of oranges and lemons. No footsteps echoed. They
would never be heard of again. The adventurous head of the Special
Crimes Department watched these disappearances from a distance with
an interested eye. He felt light-hearted, as though he had been
ambushed all alone in a jungle many thousands of miles away from
departmental desks and official inkstands. This joyousness and
The Secret Agent |
