| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: quickly repacking, deciding that the inferior Russian carpets and
unnecessary crockery should not be taken at all. When everything had
been taken out of the cases, they recommenced packing, and it turned
out that when the cheaper things not worth taking had nearly all
been rejected, the valuable ones really did all go into the two cases.
Only the lid of the case containing the carpets would not shut down. A
few more things might have been taken out, but Natasha insisted on
having her own way. She packed, repacked, pressed, made the butler's
assistant and Petya- whom she had drawn into the business of
packing- press on the lid, and made desperate efforts herself.
"That's enough, Natasha," said Sonya. "I see you were right, but
War and Peace |
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: the arid soil in which our existence is rooted, and on which a
thousand stagnant ideas fall; they cannot fertilize the ground, but
they supply food for the etiolated flowers of our desert souls. Never
believe in indifference! Indifference is either despair or
resignation. Then each woman takes up the pursuit which, according to
her character, seems to promise some amusement. Some rush into jam-
making and washing, household management, the rural joys of the
vintage or the harvest, bottling fruit, embroidering handkerchiefs,
the cares of motherhood, the intrigues of a country town. Others
torment a much-enduring piano, which, at the end of seven years,
sounds like an old kettle, and ends its asthmatic life at the Chateau
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower: As him was set in covenant:
And thanne he syh merveilles strange,
The flod his colour gan to change, 310
The gravel with the smale Stones
To gold thei torne bothe at ones,
And he was quit of that he hadde,
And thus fortune his chance ladde.
And whan he sih his touche aweie,
He goth him hom the rihte weie
And liveth forth as he dede er,
And putte al Avarice afer,
Confessio Amantis |
