| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: father like you under the sun. If Eugene loved you before, what
must he feel for you now?"
"Why, children, why Delphinette!" cried Goriot, who had not felt
his daughter's heart beat against his breast for ten years, "do
you want me to die of joy? My poor heart will break! Come,
Monsieur Eugene, we are quits already." And the old man strained
her to his breast with such fierce and passionate force that she
cried out.
"Oh! you are hurting me!" she said.
"I am hurting you!" He grew pale at the words. The pain expressed
in his face seemed greater than it is given to humanity to know.
Father Goriot |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: of love, she showed only the surface to the world. Now and then she
would try to rouse herself, try to form some manly resolution; but she
was kept in leading strings by the need for money. And so, slowly and
in spite of the ambitious protests and grievous recriminations of her
own mind, she underwent the provincial metamorphosis here described.
Each day took with it a fragment of her spirited determination. She
had laid down a rule for the care of her person, which she gradually
departed from. Though at first she kept up with the fashions and the
little novelties of elegant life, she was obliged to limit her
purchases by the amount of her allowance. Instead of six hats, caps,
or gowns, she resigned herself to one gown each season. She was so
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Iron Puddler by James J. Davis: few coins to pay for the melons he had given me. But my peep into
his soul had taught me more than his propaganda could teach me.
Later I read all the pamphlets because I had promised I would.
They told of the labor movement and the theories at work in
Germany. One of them was called Merrie England and declared that
England had once been merry, but capitalism had crushed all joy
and turned the island into a living hell. I remembered my mother
in Wales rocking her baby's cradle and singing all day long with
a voice vibrant with joy. If capitalism had crushed her heart she
hadn't heard about it.
When the lodge excursion train had passed on toward the
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