| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: dinner hour he never failed to look in on his neighbors, and in
the evening he flew there at the accustomed hour with a lover's
punctuality. Thus the most tyrannical woman or the most ambitious
in the matter of love could not have found the smallest fault
with the young painter. And Adelaide tasted of unmixed and
unbounded happiness as she saw the fullest realization of the
ideal of which, at her age, it is so natural to dream.
The old gentleman now came more rarely; Hippolyte, who had been
jealous, had taken his place at the green table, and shared his
constant ill-luck at cards. And sometimes, in the midst of his
happiness, as he considered Madame de Rouville's disastrous
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: mistresses have a monopoly of these caps. Flowers nod above the frame-
work, flowers that are more than artificial; lying by in closets for
years the cap is both new and old, even on the day it is first worn.
These spinsters make it a point of honor to resemble the lay figures
of a painter; they sit on their hips, never on their chairs. When any
one speaks to them they turn their whole busts instead of simply
turning their heads; and when their gowns creak one is tempted to
believe that the mechanism of these beings is out of order.
Mademoiselle Habert, an ideal of her species, had a stern eye, a grim
mouth, and beneath her wrinkled chin the strings of her cap, always
limp and faded, floated as she moved. Two moles, rather large and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "I'd like to know who he is and what he does," insisted Tom. "And I think
I'll make a point of finding out."
"I can tell you right now," she answered. "He owned some drug-stores,
a lot of drug-stores. He built them up himself."
The dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive.
"Good night, Nick," said Daisy.
Her glance left me and sought the lighted top of the steps, where
THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING, a neat, sad little waltz of that year,
was drifting out the open door. After all, in the very casualness of
Gatsby's party there were romantic possibilities totally absent from
her world. What was it up there in the song that seemed to be calling
The Great Gatsby |
