| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adventure by Jack London: yourself; and you were certainly living it when I found you first,
down with fever on a lonely plantation with a couple of hundred
wild cannibals thirsting for your life. Then I came along--"
"And what with your arriving in a gale," he broke in, "fresh from
the wreck of the schooner, landing on the beach in a whale-boat
full of picturesque Tahitian sailors, and coming into the bungalow
with a Baden-Powell on your head, sea-boots on your feet, and a
whacking big Colt's dangling on your hip--why, I am only too ready
to admit that you were the quintessence of adventure."
"Very good," she cried exultantly. "It's mere simple arithmetic--
the adding of your adventure and my adventure together. So that's
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: "Yes, father; it is not mine. It is a sacred trust."
"Ta, ta, ta, ta! He took your fortune, and now you can get it back."
"Father!"
Grandet took his knife to pry out some of the gold; to do this, he
placed the dressing-case on a chair. Eugenie sprang forward to recover
it; but her father, who had his eye on her and on the treasure too,
pushed her back so violently with a thrust of his arm that she fell
upon her mother's bed.
"Monsieur, monsieur!" cried the mother, lifting herself up.
Grandet had opened his knife, and was about to apply it to the gold.
"Father!" cried Eugenie, falling on her knees and dragging herself
Eugenie Grandet |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: from this time forth he read new books and romances with avidity, in
this way gaining a half-knowledge, of which he made a very fair use.
He went so far in his gratitude to his teachers as to undertake the
defence of Pigault-Lebrun, remarking that in his opinion he was
instructive and not seldom profound.
This officer, whose acquired practical wisdom did not allow him to
make any journey in vain, had just come from Grenoble, and was on his
way to the Grande Chartreuse, after obtaining on the previous evening
a week's leave of absence from his colonel. He had not expected that
the journey would be a long one; but when, league after league, he had
been misled as to the distance by the lying statements of the
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