| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: else.
Without doubt the chancellor, Seguier looked about at that moment
for the rope of the famous bell; but not finding it he summoned
his resolution, and stretched forth his hands toward the place
where the queen had acknowledged the paper was to be found.
Anne of Austria took one step backward, became so pale that it
might be said she was dying, and leaning with her left hand upon
a table behind her to keep herself from falling, she with her
right hand drew the paper from her bosom and held it out to the
keeper of the seals.
"There, monsieur, there is that letter!" cried the queen, with a
The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: suffering and weakness glorified! This lamb it is which the miser
fattens, puts in his fold, slaughters, cooks, eats, and then despises.
The pasture of misers is compounded of money and disdain. During the
night Grandet's ideas had taken another course, which was the reason
of his sudden clemency. He had hatched a plot by which to trick the
Parisians, to decoy and dupe and snare them, to drive them into a
trap, and make them go and come and sweat and hope and turn pale,--a
plot by which to amuse himself, the old provincial cooper, sitting
there beneath his gloomy rafters, or passing up and down the rotten
staircase of his house in Saumur. His nephew filled his mind. He
wished to save the honor of his dead brother without the cost of a
Eugenie Grandet |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela: He reached the camp. Lying among the farrows, the
soldiers slept with the horses, heads bowed, eyes closed.
"Our horses are pretty tired, Anastasio. I think we
ought to stay here at least another day."
"Well, Compadre Demetrio, I'm hankering for the
sierra. . . . If you only knew. . . . You may not believe
me but nothing strikes me right here. I don't know what
I miss but I know I miss something. I feel sad . . .
lost. . . ."
"How many hours' ride from here to Limon?"
"It's no matter of hours; it's three days' hard riding,
The Underdogs |
