| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: before she hears anything else,--it is always so in little towns; and
the shock will kill her. Besides, I am not innocent. Must I tell you
the whole truth? I feel that I have lost the virginity of my
conscience."
After that terrible avowal he sat down, crossed his arms on his
breast, bowed his head upon it, gazing gloomily on the ground. At this
instant the turnkey came to ask me to return to my room. Grieved to
leave my companion at a moment when his discouragement was so deep, I
pressed him in my arms with friendship, saying:--
"Have patience; all may yet go well. If the voice of an honest man can
still your doubts, believe that I esteem you and trust you. Accept my
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: sleeping room erstwhile so crowded, keeping their wine in the
tunnel that once rang with picks.
But Silverado itself, although now fallen in its turn into
decay, was once but a mushroom, and had succeeded to other
mines and other flitting cities. Twenty years ago, away down
the glen on the Lake County side there was a place, Jonestown
by name, with two thousand inhabitants dwelling under canvas,
and one roofed house for the sale of whiskey. Round on the
western side of Mount Saint Helena, there was at the same
date, a second large encampment, its name, if it ever had
one, lost for me. Both of these have perished, leaving not a
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: and said: "Now, be brave, be brave!" The step was pulled up and the
fiacre rumbled off.
Then Madame Aubain had a fainting spell, and that evening all her
friends, including the two Lormeaus, Madame Lechaptois, the ladies
Rochefeuille, Messieurs de Houppeville and Bourais, called on her and
tendered their sympathy.
At first the separation proved very painful to her. But her daughter
wrote her three times a week and the other days she, herself, wrote to
Virginia. Then she walked in the garden, read a little, and in this
way managed to fill out the emptiness of the hours.
Each morning, out of habit, Felicite entered Virginia's room and gazed
A Simple Soul |
