| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: the landlord, betook himself to the knave of Vouvray, the jovial
merry-maker, the comic man of the neighborhood, compelled by fame and
nature to supply the town with merriment. This country Figaro was once
a dyer, and now possessed about seven or eight thousand francs a year,
a pretty house on the slope of the hill, a plump little wife, and
robust health. For ten years he had had nothing to do but take care of
his wife and his garden, marry his daughter, play whist in the
evenings, keep the run of all the gossip in the neighborhood, meddle
with the elections, squabble with the large proprietors, and order
good dinners; or else trot along the embankment to find out what was
going on in Tours, torment the cure, and finally, by way of dramatic
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells: the Heat-Ray now rigidly upheld, it reeled swiftly upon Shep-
perton. The living intelligence, the Martian within the hood,
was slain and splashed to the four winds of heaven, and the
Thing was now but a mere intricate device of metal whirling
to destruction. It drove along in a straight line, incapable of
guidance. It struck the tower of Shepperton Church, smash-
ing it down as the impact of a battering ram might have
done, swerved aside, blundered on and collapsed with tre-
mendous force into the river out of my sight.
A violent explosion shook the air, and a spout of water,
steam, mud, and shattered metal shot far up into the sky.
War of the Worlds |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Country Doctor by Honore de Balzac: Monseigneur was good enough to allow me to choose a priest who would
share in my labors, and it was my happy fortune to meet with one of
those rare natures that seemed to have dropped down from heaven. Then
I went on with my enterprise. After preparing people's minds, I made
another transportation by night, and six more cretins were taken away.
In this second attempt I had the support of several people to whom I
had rendered some service, and I was backed by the members of the
Communal Council, for I had appealed to their parsimonious instincts,
showing them how much it cost to support the poor wretches, and
pointing out how largely they might gain by converting their plots of
ground (to which the idiots had no proper title) into allotments which
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