| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: they left the theatre she was very grave.
"What ails you, my Didine?" asked Lousteau.
"I am wondering how a woman succeeds in conquering the world?"
"There are two ways. One is by being Madame de Stael, the other is by
having two hundred thousand francs a year."
"Society," said she, "asserts its hold on us by appealing to our
vanity, our love of appearances.--Pooh! We will be philosophers!"
That evening was the last gleam of the delusive well-being in which
Madame de la Baudraye had lived since coming to Paris. Three days
later she observed a cloud on Lousteau's brow as he walked round the
little garden-plot smoking a cigar. This woman, who had acquired from
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: stations to let the trains going the opposite way pass. Whether
we set off now or in the morning we shan't be number fourteen.
We shall have to be number twenty-three."
"And how do you make that out?"
"Well, there it is."
Malahin looks at the guard, reflects, and mutters mechanically as
though to himself:
"God be my judge, I have reckoned it and even jotted it down in a
notebook; we have wasted thirty-four hours standing still on the
journey. If you go on like this, either the cattle will die, or
they won't pay me two roubles for the meat when I do get there.
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: number of legs!"
"The other alternative," said the Earl, "would be a diminuendo series
of repetitions of the same type. Never mind the monotony of it: let's
see how it would work in other ways. Begin with the race of men, and
the creatures they require: let us say horses, cattle, sheep, and dogs
we don't exactly require frogs and spiders, do we, Muriel?"
Lady Muriel shuddered perceptibly: it was evidently a painful subject.
"We can dispense with them," she said gravely.
"Well, then we'll have a second race of men, half-a-yard high--"
"--who would have one source of exquisite enjoyment, not possessed by
ordinary men!" Arthur interrupted.
Sylvie and Bruno |
