| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: and to retreat into the abbey, where, in the king's name, they broached
a pipe of the best wine, and attached all the venison in the larder,
having first carefully unpacked the tuft of friars, and set the fallen
abbot on his legs.
The friars, it may be well supposed, and such of the king's men
as escaped unhurt from the affray, found their spirits a cup too low,
and kept the flask moving from noon till night. The peaceful brethren,
unused to the tumult of war, had undergone, from fear and discomposure,
an exhaustion of animal spirits that required extraordinary refection.
During the repast, they interrogated Sir Ralph Montfaucon, the leader
of the soldiers, respecting the nature of the earl's offence.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: superior to that of a man of whom it is simply stated that "he is
witty." Genius always presupposes moral insight. This insight may
be applied to a special subject; but he who can see a flower must
be able to see the sun. The man who on hearing a diplomate he has
saved ask, "How is the Emperor?" could say, "The courtier is
alive; the man will follow!"--that man is not merely a surgeon or
a physician, he is prodigiously witty also. Hence a patient and
diligent student of human nature will admit Desplein's exorbitant
pretensions, and believe--as he himself believed--that he might
have been no less great as a minister than he was as a surgeon.
Among the riddles which Desplein's life presents to many of his
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: perhaps on the strength of, a pimpled complexion and a viper-like
length of spine, had made up her mind that some day she would be Mme.
Pons. But in vain she dangled twenty thousand francs of savings before
the old bachelor's eyes; Pons had declined happiness accompanied by so
many pimples. From that time forth the Dido of the ante-chamber, who
fain had called her master and mistress "cousin," wreaked her spite in
petty ways upon the poor musician. She heard him on the stairs, and
cried audibly, "Oh! here comes the sponger!" She stinted him of wine
when she waited at dinner in the footman's absence; she filled the
water-glass to the brim, to give him the difficult task of lifting it
without spilling a drop; or she would pass the old man over
|
