| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: comprehended the sanctity that true feeling imparts to love, when
memories of Clochegourde were bringing me, in spite of distance, the
fragrance of the roses, the warmth of the terrace, and the warble of
the nightingales,--at this frightful moment, when I saw the stony bed
beneath me as the waters of the torrent receded, I received a blow
which still resounds in my heart, for at every hour its echo wakes.
I was working in the cabinet of the king, who was to drive out at four
o'clock. The Duc de Lenoncourt was on service. When he entered the
room the king asked him news of the countess. I raised my head hastily
in too eager a manner; the king, offended by the action, gave me the
look which always preceded the harsh words he knew so well how to say.
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Princess of Parms by Edgar Rice Burroughs: I was quartered, but nearer the plaza.
Without waiting for a further invitation I bolted up the
winding runway which led to the second floor, and entering
a great chamber at the front of the building was greeted
by the frenzied Woola, who threw his great carcass upon
me, nearly hurling me to the floor; the poor old fellow was
so glad to see me that I thought he would devour me, his
head split from ear to ear, showing his three rows of tusks
in his hobgoblin smile.
Quieting him with a word of command and a caress, I
looked hurriedly through the approaching gloom for a sign
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Virginibus Puerisque by Robert Louis Stevenson: poisoned wound. That he himself made a fashion of being alive
in the bald, beggarly days before a certain meeting, is
deplorable enough in all good conscience. But that She should
have permitted herself the same liberty seems inconsistent
with a Divine providence.
A great many people run down jealousy, on the score that
it is an artificial feeling, as well as practically
inconvenient. This is scarcely fair; for the feeling on which
it merely attends, like an ill-humoured courtier, is itself
artificial in exactly the same sense and to the same degree.
I suppose what is meant by that objection is that jealousy has
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