| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: with true humility she had asked to be buried beneath a simple cross
of black wood, "like a poor country-woman," she said. When I saw, from
the centre of the valley, the village church and the place of the
graveyard a convulsive shudder seized me. Alas! we have all our
Golgothas, where we leave the first thirty-three years of our lives,
with the lance-wound in our side, the crown of thorns and not of roses
on our brow--that hill-slope was to me the mount of expiation.
We were followed by an immense crowd, seeking to express the grief of
the valley where she had silently buried so many noble actions.
Manette, her faithful woman, told me that when her savings did not
suffice to help the poor she economized upon her dress. There were
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Contrast by Royall Tyler: sand pounds! If he had lost it in trade, why the best
men may have ill-luck; but to game it away, as Trans-
fer says--why, at this rate, his whole estate may go in
one night, and, what is ten times worse, mine into the
bargain. No, no; Mary is right. Leave women to
look out in these matters; for all they look as if they
didn't know a journal from a ledger, when their inter-
est is concerned they know what's what; they mind
the main chance as well as the best of us. I wonder
Mary did not tell me she knew of his spending his
money so foolishly. Seventeen thousand pounds!
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: the cashier had not so much as raised his head. But in the present instance
things had not gone so smoothly. The package of notes not being found when
five o'clock sounded from the ponderous clock in the "drawing office,"
the amount was passed to the account of profit and loss. As soon as
the robbery was discovered, picked detectives hastened off to Liverpool,
Glasgow, Havre, Suez, Brindisi, New York, and other ports, inspired by
the proffered reward of two thousand pounds, and five per cent. on the sum
that might be recovered. Detectives were also charged with narrowly watching
those who arrived at or left London by rail, and a judicial examination
was at once entered upon.
There were real grounds for supposing, as the Daily Telegraph said,
Around the World in 80 Days |
