| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: of reading aloud or copying assigned her. The work had been easier
to define because Mr. Casaubon had adopted an immediate intention:
there was to be a new Parergon, a small monograph on some
lately traced indications concerning the Egyptian mysteries
whereby certain assertions of Warburton's could be corrected.
References were extensive even here, but not altogether shoreless;
and sentences were actually to be written in the shape wherein they
would be scanned by Brasenose and a less formidable posterity.
These minor monumental productions were always exciting to Mr. Casaubon;
digestion was made difficult by the interference of citations,
or by the rivalry of dialectical phrases ringing against each other
Middlemarch |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: fastening the petticoat beneath her short night-gown and going to the
door of the room where her daughter was in bed.
"Cesarine is asleep," she said, "she won't hear us. Come, Birotteau,
speak up. What is it?"
"We can give a ball."
"Give a ball! we? On the word of an honest woman, you are dreaming, my
friend."
"I am not dreaming, my beautiful white doe. Listen. People should
always do what their position in life demands. Government has brought
me forward into prominence. I belong to the government; it is my duty
to study its mind, and further its intentions by developing them. The
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield: let you go until I know for certain that you are just as happy as you were
before you asked me to marry you. Surely you must see that, it's so
simple."
But it did not seem at all simple to Reginald. It seemed impossibly
difficult.
"Even if I can't marry you, how can I know that you're all that way away,
with only that awful mother to write to, and that you're miserable, and
that it's all my fault?"
"It's not your fault. Don't think that. It's just fate." Reggie took her
hand off his sleeve and kissed it. "Don't pity me, dear little Anne," he
said gently. And this time he nearly ran, under the pink arches, along the
|
