| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Second Home by Honore de Balzac: suffering?--I have ceased to love.--These words contain a mystery as
deep as lies the words /I love/. Esteem, respect, friendship may be
won, lost, regained; but as to love--I might school myself for a
thousand years, and it would not blossom again, especially for a woman
too old to respond to it."
"I hope, Monsieur le Comte, I sincerely hope, that such words may not
be spoken to you some day by the woman you love, and in such a tone
and accent--"
"Will you put on a dress /a la Grecque/ this evening, and come to the
Opera?"
The shudder with which the Countess received the suggestion was a mute
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: burnt-offerings, and of showbread. Inexorable as a goddess of the
ancients was Miss Fink, and ten times as difficult to appease. For
this is the rule of the Newest Hotel, that no waiter may carry his
laden tray restaurantward until its contents have been viewed and
duly checked by the eye and hand of Miss Gussie Fink, or her
assistants. Flat upon the table must go every tray, off must go
each silver dish-cover, lifted must be each napkin to disclose its
treasure of steaming corn or hot rolls. Clouds of incense rose
before Miss Gussie Fink and she sniffed it unmoved, her eyes,
beneath level brows, regarding savory broiler or cunning ice with
equal indifference, appraising alike lobster cocktail or onion
Buttered Side Down |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: it with a counter memorial denouncing him to the Emperor as a man
who was making narrow-minded and wild suggestions to His Majesty.
Partly because they had opened and read the memorial and partly
because of their effort to prevent freedom of speech, Kuang Hsu
issued another edict explaining why he had invited sealed
memorials, and censuring them for explaining to him what was
narrow-minded and wild, as if he lacked the intelligence to grasp
that feature of the paper. He then turned them all over to the
Board of Civil Office ordering that body to decide upon a
suitable punishment for their offense, and assuring them that if
they made it too mild, his righteous wrath would fall upon them.
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