| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas: "Sixteen pioneers, four soldiers."
"How far distant?"
"Five hundred paces."
"Good! We have just time to finish this fowl and to drink
one glass of wine to your health, D'Artagnan."
"To your health!" repeated Porthos and Aramis.
"Well, then, to my health! although I am very much afraid
that your good wishes will not be of great service to me."
"Bah!" said Athos, "God is great, as say the followers of
Mohammed, and the future is in his hands."
Then, swallowing the contents of his glass, which he put
The Three Musketeers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: hour by hour to a joy which no words can express, a woman who had
been at a world of pains to invent plausible pretexts to draw him
to her side. Yet, after all, it was a cruel deed of charity to be
the messenger of death! So I hurried on, splashing and bemiring
myself in the byways of the Bourbonnais.
Before very long I reached a great chestnut avenue with a pile of
buildings at the further end--the Chateau of Montpersan stood out
against the sky like a mass of brown cloud, with sharp, fantastic
outlines. All the doors of the chateau stood open. This in itself
disconcerted me, and routed all my plans; but I went in boldly,
and in a moment found myself between a couple of dogs, barking as
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: chill seemed to creep into his very bones.
The darkness of the night above him, and the silence of the veld about him,
oppressed him. At times he even wished he might hear the cry of a jackal
or of some larger beast of prey in the distance; and he wished that the
wind would blow a little louder, instead of making that little wheezing
sound as it passed the corners of the stones. He looked down at his gun,
which lay cocked ready on the ground at his right side; and from time to
time he raised his hand automatically and fingered the cartridges in his
belt. Then he stretched out his small wiry hands to the fire and warmed
them. It was only half past ten, and it seemed to him he had been sitting
here ten hours at the least.
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