| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: monarch, and to do just as I please; to lead such a life as no
one here in these squalid dens of lath and plaster ever imagines.
I am a great poet; I do not write my poems, I feel them, and act
them. At this moment I have fifty thousand francs, which might
possibly buy forty negroes. I want two hundred thousand francs,
because I want to have two hundred negroes to carry out my
notions of the patriarachal life properly. Negroes, you see, are
like a sort of family ready grown, and there are no inquisitive
public prosecutors out there to interfere with you. That
investment in ebony ought to mean three or four million francs
in ten years' time. If I am successful, no one will ask me who I
Father Goriot |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: stretching its hoary distances infinitely. And out of the silver-grey
fog of darkness came sounds vague and hoarse: a corncrake not
far off, sound of a train like a sigh, and distant shouts of men.
Her quietened heart beginning to beat quickly again, she hurried
down the side garden to the back of the house. Softly she lifted
the latch; the door was still bolted, and hard against her.
She rapped gently, waited, then rapped again. She must not rouse
the children, nor the neighbours. He must be asleep, and he would
not wake easily. Her heart began to burn to be indoors. She clung
to the door-handle. Now it was cold; she would take a chill,
and in her present condition!
Sons and Lovers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: deep-mouth'd hawkers? Though I print almanacks, and publish
advertisements; though I produce certificates under the ministers
and church-wardens hands I am alive, and attest the same on oath
at quarter-sessions, out comes a full and true relation of the
death and interment of John Partridge; Truth is bore down,
attestations neglected, the testimony of sober persons despised,
and a man is looked upon by his neighbours as if he had been
seven years dead, and is buried alive in the midst of his friends
and acquaintance.
Now can any man of common sense think it consistent with the
honour of my profession, and not much beneath the dignity of a
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