| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: made his wife write her a letter, urging her to receive her visitors
as usual that evening. Bolder still, the old merchant went himself in
the morning to Madame de Dey's house, and, strong in the service he
wanted to render her, he insisted on seeing her, and was amazed to
find her in the garden gathering flowers for her vases.
"She must be protecting a lover," thought the old man, filled with
sudden pity for the charming woman.
The singular expression on the countess's face strengthened this
conjecture. Much moved at the thought of such devotion, for all men
are flattered by the sacrifices a woman makes for one of them, the old
man told the countess of the rumors that were floating about the town,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: " 'You are wrong, Monsieur le Comte,' retorted Cerizet, in a slightly
peremptory tone. 'We will be paid in full, and that in a way which you
may not like. That is why I came to you first in a friendly spirit, as
is right and fit between gentlemen--'
" 'Oh! so that is how you understand it?' began Maxime, enraged by
this last piece of presumption. There was something of Talleyrand's
wit in the insolent retort, if you have quite grasped the contrast
between the two men and their costumes. Maxime scowled and looked full
at the intruder; Cerizet not merely endured the glare of cold fury,
but even returned it, with an icy, cat-like malignance and fixity of
gaze.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: to see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the compressed
air affair, and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and danced
about me something disgraceful. It's extraordinary the different ways
different people have of showing respect. If I'd had a hatchet handy
I'd have gone for the lot of them--they made me feel that wild.
All this time I sat as stiff as company, not knowing anything better
to do. And at last, when nightfall came, and the wattle joss-house
place got a bit too shadowy for their taste--all these here savages
are afraid of the dark, you know--and I started a sort of 'Moo' noise,
they built big bonfires outside and left me alone in peace in the
darkness of my hut, free to unscrew my windows a bit and think
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