| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: thinking of the best means of maintaining the dignity of his command,
when the trot of a horse was heard in the vicinity. All heads turned
in the direction from which the sound came. A lady appeared, sitting
astride of a little Breton horse, which she put at a gallop as soon as
she saw the young leader, so as to reach the group of Chouans as
quickly as possible.
"What is the matter?" she said, looking first at the Chouans and then
at their chief.
"Could you believe it, madame? they are waiting to rob the diligence
from Mayenne to Fougeres when we have just had a skirmish, in order to
release the conscripts of Fougeres, which has cost us a great many men
The Chouans |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: full of tenderness for gentleness. The outline of that little head, so
admirably poised above the long, white throat, the delicate, fine
features, the subtle curves of the lips, the mobile face itself, wore
an expression of delicate discretion, a faint semblance of irony
suggestive of craft and insolence. Yet it would have been difficult to
refuse forgiveness to those two feminine failings in her; for the
lines that came out in her forehead whenever her face was not in
repose, like her upward glances (that pathetic trick of manner), told
unmistakably of unhappiness, of a passion that had all but cost her
her life. A woman, sitting in the great, silent salon, a woman cut off
from the rest of the world in this remote little valley, alone, with
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: out of sorts somewhat on rising. Nothing much.
Just enough to make him feel lazy.
All this with a sustained, holding stare which,
in conjunction with the general inanity of the
discourse, conveyed the impression of mild, dreary
lunacy. And when he hitched his chair a little
and dropped his voice to the low note of mystery,
it flashed upon me that high professional reputa-
tion was not necessarily a guarantee of sound
mind.
It never occurred to me then that I didn't
The Shadow Line |
