| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: consuming joys. She would hate Lousteau for not taking any pains to
follow her; she would have liked to get tender or furious letters from
him.
Dinah made no reply, so Monsieur de Clagny repeated the question,
taking the Countess' hand and pressing it between his own with devout
respect.
"Will you have the right hand or the left?" said she, smiling.
"The left," said he, "for I suppose you mean the truth or a fib."
"Well, then, I saw him," she said, speaking into the lawyer's ear.
"And as I saw him looking so sad, so out of heart, I said to myself,
Has he a cigar? Has he any money?"
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: girl to the guardianship of lock and key, under the protection of
religious ideas, all the more efficacious because they were partly
superstitious, and also under the shield of a native pride and
sensitive modesty which made the young Mancini in sort an exception
among her sex. Juana possessed in an equal degree the most attaching
virtues and the most passionate impulses; she had needed the modesty
and sanctity of this monotonous life to calm and cool the tumultuous
blood of the Maranas which bounded in her heart, the desires of which
her adopted mother told her were an instigation of the devil.
A faint ray of light traced along the sill of the secret door guided
Montefiore to the place; he scratched the panel softly and Juana
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Market-Place by Harold Frederic: before the fireplace, after the others were all seated.
"Mr. Thorpe has been outlining to me the most wonderful plans,"
said the Duke, looking from one face to another, with a
reserved smile. "It seems that philanthropy fails unless
it is combined with very advanced politics. It is a new
idea to me--but he certainly states it with vigour.
Do you understand it, Edith?"
"Oh, perfectly," replied the wife, smilingly. "I am
his first convert. Behold in me the original disciple."
"The worst of that is," commented Thorpe, with radiant joviality,
"she would subscribe to any other new doctrine of mine
The Market-Place |
