| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lesser Bourgeoisie by Honore de Balzac: chance can sometimes seem clever and adroit. As he stood there,
thinking over the significance which this more or less accidental
combination might have, la Peyrade read through a number of scenes to
see whether in the details as well as the general whole they applied
to the present situation. While thus employed, the sound of an opening
door was heard, and he recognized the silvery and slightly drawling
voice of the countess, who was evidently accompanying some visitor to
the door.
"Then I may promise the ambassadress," said a man's voice, "that you
will honor her ball with your presence?"
"Yes, commander, if my headache, which is just beginning to get a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: was over and done with before a mate in the olden time could have
got his profanity-mill adjusted to begin the preparatory services.
Why this new and simple method of handling the stages was not thought
of when the first steamboat was built, is a mystery which helps one to
realize what a dull-witted slug the average human being is.
We finally got away at two in the morning, and when I turned out
at six, we were rounding to at a rocky point where there was an old
stone warehouse--at any rate, the ruins of it; two or three decayed
dwelling-houses were near by, in the shelter of the leafy hills;
but there were no evidences of human or other animal life to be seen.
I wondered if I had forgotten the river; for I had no recollection whatever
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: a new light? your soul was bared, and the grave,--a foretaste
of the nakedness of the Judgment-Day? So it came before him,
his life, that night. The slow tides of pain he had borne
gathered themselves up and surged against his soul. His squalid
daily life, the brutal coarseness eating into his brain, as the
ashes into his skin: before, these things had been a dull
aching into his consciousness; to-night, they were reality. He
griped the filthy red shirt that clung, stiff with soot, about
him, and tore it savagely from his arm. The flesh beneath was
muddy with grease and ashes,--and the heart beneath that! And
the soul? God knows.
Life in the Iron-Mills |
