| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: For him the Eastern question relates only to the morning skies. To go
on foot and not get muddied, to save his clothes, and allow for the
time he may lose in standing under shelter during a shower, are the
preoccupations of his mind. The street pavements, the flaggings of the
quays and the boulevards, when first laid down, were a boon to him.
If, for some extraordinary reason, you happen to be in the streets of
Paris at half-past seven or eight o'clock of a winter's morning, and
see through piercing cold or fog or rain a timid, pale young man loom
up, cigarless, take notice of his pockets. You will be sure to see the
outline of a roll which his mother has given him to stay his stomach
between breakfast and dinner. The guilelessness of the supernumerary
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: them they took them by the legs, and suddenly threw them over the
ramparts. Some who were not killed were pursued, and went and drowned
themselves in the sea.
Utica was enduring the presence of soldiers, for Magdassin had acted
like Hanno, and in accordance with his orders and deaf to Hamilcar's
prayers, was surrounding the town. As for these, they were given wine
mixed with mandrake, and were then slaughtered in their sleep. At the
same time the Barbarians arrived; Magdassin fled; the gates were
opened, and thenceforward the two Tyrian towns displayed an obstinate
devotion to their new friends and an inconceivable hatred to their
former allies.
Salammbo |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: about the pomegranate. She even shed a tear or two, thinking
how lonely and cheerless the great palace would seem to him,
with all its ugly glare of artificial light, after she
herself--his one little ray of natural sunshine, whom he had
stolen, to be sure, but only because he valued her so
much--after she should have departed. I know not how many kind
things she might have said to the disconsolate king of the
mines, had not Quicksilver hurried her way.
"Come along quickly," whispered he in her ear, "or his majesty
may change his royal mind. And take care, above all things,
that you say nothing of what was brought you on the golden
Tanglewood Tales |
