| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: human passion and interests which I could not possibly have made; but
I have made a beginning," he added, with bitterness in his tone, as he
took a vengeful glance round the circle; "the time of gestation is
long----"
"Then it will be a case of difficult labor," interrupted M. du Hautoy.
"Your excellent mother might assist you," suggested the Bishop.
The epigram, innocently made by the good prelate, the long-looked-for
revenge, kindled a gleam of delight in all eyes. The smile of
satisfied caste that traveled from mouth to mouth was aggravated by M.
de Bargeton's imbecility; he burst into a laugh, as usual, some
moments later.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Simple Soul by Gustave Flaubert: the Child Jesus, and behind the alter, a wooden group represented
Saint Michael felling the dragon.
The priest first read a condensed lesson of sacred history. Felicite
evoked Paradise, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the blazing cities,
the dying nations, the shattered idols; and out of this she developed
a great respect for the Almighty and a great fear of His wrath. Then,
when she had listened to the Passion, she wept. Why had they crucified
Him who loved little children, nourished the people, made the blind
see, and who, out of humility, had wished to be born among the poor,
in a stable? The sowings, the harvests, the wine-presses, all those
familiar things which the Scriptures mention, formed a part of her
A Simple Soul |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: sea anemones, who were stuck like lumps of jelly to the side of the
rock. Brooding, she changed the pool into the sea, and made the minnows
into sharks and whales, and cast vast clouds over this tiny world by
holding her hand against the sun, and so brought darkness and
desolation, like God himself, to millions of ignorant and innocent
creatures, and then took her hand away suddenly and let the sun stream
down. Out on the pale criss-crossed sand, high-stepping, fringed,
gauntleted, stalked some fantastic leviathan (she was still enlarging
the pool), and slipped into the vast fissures of the mountain side.
And then, letting her eyes slide imperceptibly above the pool and rest
on that wavering line of sea and sky, on the tree trunks which the
To the Lighthouse |
