| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: were plenty of hotels, he remembered, smiling grimly. It was
bitter cold: he buttoned up his coat tightly, as he walked slowly
along as if waiting for some one,--wondering dully if the gray
air were any colder or stiller than the heart hardly beating
under the coat. Well, men had conquered Fate, conquered life and
love, before now. It grew darker: he was pacing now slowly in
the shadow of a long low wall surrounding the grounds of some
building. When he came near the gate, he would stop and listen:
he could have heard a sparrow on the snow, it was so still.
After a while he did hear footsteps, crunching the snow heavily;
the gate clicked as they came out: it was Knowles, and the
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: article of more than a column of praise of these brilliant
improvisers, for whom it claimed that they utterly put to shame the
mere reciters of memorized parts.
Andre-Louis, reading the sheet at breakfast, and having no delusions
on the score of the falseness of that statement, laughed inwardly.
The novelty of the thing, and the pretentiousness in which he had
swaddled it, had deceived them finely. He turned to greet Binet and
Climene, who entered at that moment. He waved the sheet above his
head.
"It is settled," he announced, "we stay in Nantes until Easter."
"Do we?" said Binet, sourly. "You settle everything, my friend."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: man lay, lighted the way so dimly that Death, aided by cold,
silence, and darkness, and it may be by a reaction of
drunkenness, could send some sober thoughts through the
spendthrift's soul. He examined his life, and became thoughtful,
like a man involved in a lawsuit on his way to the Court.
Bartolommeo Belvidero, Don Juan's father, was an old man of
ninety, who had devoted the greatest part of his life to business
pursuits. He had acquired vast wealth in many a journey to
magical Eastern lands, and knowledge, so it was said, more
valuable than the gold and diamonds, which had almost ceased to
have any value for him.
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