| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: our favorite studies. However, as books were prohibited, our prison
hours were chiefly filled up with metaphysical discussions, or with
relating singular facts connected with the phenomena of mind.
One of the most extraordinary of these incidents beyond question is
this, which I will here record, not only because it concerns Lambert,
but because it perhaps was the turning-point of his scientific career.
By the law of custom in all schools, Thursday and Sunday were
holidays; but the services, which we were made to attend very
regularly, so completely filled up Sunday, that we considered Thursday
our only real day of freedom. After once attending Mass, we had a long
day before us to spend in walks in the country round the town of
Louis Lambert |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: an actress who has no other property than her furniture.
The bedroom, all in violet, was a dream that Florine had indulged from
her debut, the chief features of which were curtains of violet velvet
lined with white silk, and looped over tulle; a ceiling of white
cashmere with violet satin rays, an ermine carpet beside the bed; in
the bed, the curtains of which resembled a lily turned upside down was
a lantern by which to read the newspaper plaudits or criticisms before
they appeared in the morning. A yellow salon, its effect heightened by
trimmings of the color of Florentine bronze, was in harmony with the
rest of these magnificences, a further description of which would make
our pages resemble the posters of an auction sale. To find comparisons
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down,
and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound
of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of
the bones, we perceived a still interior recess, in depth
about four feet in width three, in height six or seven. It seemed
to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but
formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of
the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their
circumscribing walls of solid granite.
It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch,
endeavoured to pry into the depth of the recess. Its termination
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