| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: of it. Just a sprinkle of the salt of wit and a dash of vinegar to
bring out the flavor, and Dauriat will be done to a turn. But mind
that you end with seeming to pity Nathan for a mistake, and speak of
him as of a man from whom contemporary literature may look for great
things if he renounces these ways."
Lucien was amazed at this talk from Lousteau. As the journalist spoke,
the scales fell from his eyes; he beheld new truths of which he had
never before caught so much as a glimpse.
"But all this that you are saying is quite true and just," said he.
"If it were not, how could you make it tell against Nathan's book?"
asked Lousteau. "That is the first manner of demolishing a book, my
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley: lobsters with an iron hook.
So to the Mewstone he went, and for lobsters he looked. And when
he came to a certain crack in the rocks he was so excited that,
instead of putting in his hook, he put in his hand; and Mr. Lobster
was at home, and caught him by the finger, and held on.
"Yah!" said the mayor, and pulled as hard as he dared: but the
more he pulled, the more the lobster pinched, till he was forced to
be quiet.
Then he tried to get his hook in with his other hand; but the hole
was too narrow.
Then he pulled again; but he could not stand the pain.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: his wife and daughter. The wife had a fine veneer of mahogany on her
face, and in figure she resembled a cocoa-nut, surmounted by a head
and tied in around the waist. She pivoted on her legs, which were tap-
rooted, and her gown was yellow with black stripes. She proudly
exhibited unutterable mittens on a puffy pair of hands; the plumes of
a first-class funeral floated on an over-flowing bonnet; laces adorned
her shoulders, as round behind as they were before; consequently, the
spherical form of the cocoa-nut was perfect. Her feet, of a kind that
painters call abatis, rose above the varnished leather of the shoes in
a swelling that was some inches high. How the feet were ever got into
the shoes, no one knows.
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