| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: from place to place, and searching among the people of the
dispersion, with whom the little family from Bethlehem might,
perhaps, have found a refuge. He passed through countries
where famine lay heavy upon the land, and the poor were crying
for bread. He made his dwelling in plague-stricken cities
where the sick were languishing in the bitter companionship of
helpless misery. He visited the oppressed and the afflicted
in the gloom of subterranean prisons, and the crowded
wretchedness of slave-markets, and the weary toil of
galley-ships. In all this populous and intricate world of
anguish, though he found none to worship, he found many to help.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: crisis, can be very dramatic, to use one of your words, monsieur," he
said, addressing Etienne.
"You are very right, my dear Monsieur Gravier," said Lousteau. "I
never thought that deceived husbands were ridiculous; on the contrary,
I think highly of them--"
"Do you not think a husband's confidence a sublime thing?" said
Bianchon. "He believes in his wife, he does not suspect her, he trusts
her implicitly. But if he is so weak as to trust her, you make game of
him; if he is jealous and suspicious, you hate him; what, then, I ask
you, is the happy medium for a man of spirit?"
"If Monsieur de Clagny had not just expressed such vehement
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from An International Episode by Henry James: Lord Lambeth got into a little basket phaeton with Bessie Alden,
and she drove him down the long avenue, whose extent he had
measured on foot a couple of hours before, into the ancient town,
as it was called in that part of the world, of Newport. The ancient
town was a curious affair--a collection of fresh-looking little
wooden houses, painted white, scattered over a hillside and clustered
about a long straight street paved with enormous cobblestones.
There were plenty of shops--a large proportion of which appeared
to be those of fruit vendors, with piles of huge watermelons and
pumpkins stacked in front of them; and, drawn up before the shops,
or bumping about on the cobblestones, were innumerable other basket
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