| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: Watched over by her grandmother and served by her former nurse,
Gabrielle Beauvouloir never left this modest home except for the
parish church, the steeple of which could be seen at the summit of the
hill, whither she was always accompanied by her grandmother, her
nurse, and her father's valet. She had reached the age of seventeen in
that sweet ignorance which the rarity of books allowed a girl to
retain without appearing extraordinary at a period when educated women
were thought phenomenal. The house had been to her a convent, but with
more freedom, less enforced prayer,--a retreat where she had lived
beneath the eye of a pious old woman and the protection of her father,
the only man she had ever known. This absolute solitude, necessitated
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen: very large owl, in a hollow tree; a sort of learned owl, that continually
knocked its head against the branches. But whether the sound came from
his head or from the hollow tree, that no one could say with certainty. So now
he got the place of "Universal Bellringer," and wrote yearly a short treatise
"On the Owl"; but everybody was just as wise as before.
It was the day of confirmation. The clergyman had spoken so touchingly, the
children who were confirmed had been greatly moved; it was an eventful day for
them; from children they become all at once grown-up-persons; it was as if
their infant souls were now to fly all at once into persons with more
understanding. The sun was shining gloriously; the children that had been
confirmed went out of the town; and from the wood was borne towards them the
Fairy Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: Cerizet, he was told that it was a pity that he should be in a
position so little favorable to his interests.
"You might be foreman some day in a big printing office, making six
francs a day," said one of the Cointets one day, "and with your
intelligence you might come to have a share in the business."
"Where is the use of my being a good foreman?" returned Cerizet. "I am
an orphan, I shall be drawn for the army next year, and if I get a bad
number who is there to pay some one else to take my place?"
"If you make yourself useful," said the well-to-do printer, "why
should not somebody advance the money?"
"It won't be my gaffer in any case!" said Cerizet.
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