| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: Consequently I felt rather ashamed of wasting my powers of divination
"in anima vili,"--of a doltish financier.
While I was thus making, at a dead loss, these phrenological
observations, the worthy German had lined his nose with a good pinch
of snuff and was now beginning his tale. It would be difficult to
reproduce it in his own language, with his frequent interruptions and
wordy digressions. Therefore, I now write it down in my own way;
leaving out the faults of the Nuremburger, and taking only what his
tale may have had of interest and poesy with the coolness of writers
who forget to put on the title pages of their books: "Translated from
the German."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: make the discovery; if you happen to be sitting up all night and
have a light in your window, the constable will ring the bell,
but if you happen to be lying dead in somebody's area, you will
be left alone. In this instance, as in many others, the alarm
was raised by some kind of vagabond; I don't mean a common
tramp, or a public-house loafer, but a gentleman, whose business
or pleasure, or both, made him a spectator of the London streets
at five o'clock in the morning. This individual was, as he
said, 'going home,'it did not appear whence or whither, and had
occasion to pass through Paul Street between four and five a.m.
Something or other caught his eye at Number 20; he said,
The Great God Pan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Ancient Regime by Charles Kingsley: steeple after a storm, or repair the parsonage gable. If they
grumbled at the intendant, he threw some of the chief persons into
prison, and made the parish pay the expenses of the horse patrol,
which formed the arbitrary police of France. Everywhere was
meddling. There were reports on statistics--circumstantial,
inaccurate, and useless--as statistics are too often wont to be.
Sometimes, when the people were starving, the Government sent down
charitable donations to certain parishes, on condition that the
inhabitants should raise a sum on their part. When the sum offered
was sufficient, the Comptroller-General wrote on the margin, when he
returned the report to the intendant, "Good--express satisfaction."
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