| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: The watery sheet overhanging the fall glides so gently that no ripple
is to be seen on the surface which mirrors the chaise as you drive
past. The postboy smacks his whip; you turn past a crag; you cross a
bridge: suddenly there is a terrific uproar of cascades tumbling
together one upon another. The water, taking a mighty leap, is broken
into a hundred falls, dashed to spray on the boulders; it sparkles in
a myriad jets against a mass that has fallen from the heights that
tower over the ravine exactly in the middle of the road that has been
so irresistibly cut by the most formidable of active forces.
If you have formed a clear idea of this landscape, you will see in
those sleeping waters the image of Emilio's love for the Duchess, and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: fortunate," added he, looking gratefully at Villefort, "to
be examined by such a man as you; for this envious person is
a real enemy." And by the rapid glance that the young man's
eyes shot forth, Villefort saw how much energy lay hid
beneath this mildness.
"Now," said the deputy, "answer me frankly, not as a
prisoner to a judge, but as one man to another who takes an
interest in him, what truth is there in the accusation
contained in this anonymous letter?" And Villefort threw
disdainfully on his desk the letter Dantes had just given
back to him.
The Count of Monte Cristo |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Coxon Fund by Henry James: drawn to the neighbourhood of Upper Baker Street. There was in
those days in that region a petty lecture-hall to be secured on
terms as moderate as the funds left at our disposal by the
irrepressible question of the maintenance of five small Saltrams--I
include the mother--and one large one. By the time the Saltrams,
of different sizes, were all maintained we had pretty well poured
out the oil that might have lubricated the machinery for enabling
the most original of men to appear to maintain them.
It was I, the other time, who had been forced into the breach,
standing up there for an odious lamplit moment to explain to half a
dozen thin benches, where earnest brows were virtuously void of
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