| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: she is charming. She does not seek success, but she obtains it. We
find that for which we do not seek: that saying is so often true that
some day it will be turned into a proverb. It is, in fact, the moral
of this adventure, which I should not allow myself to tell if it were
not echoing at the present moment through all the salons of Paris.
The Marquise de Listomere danced, about a month ago, with a young man
as modest as he is lively, full of good qualities, but exhibiting,
chiefly, his defects. He is ardent, but he laughs at ardor; he has
talent, and he hides it; he plays the learned man with aristocrats,
and the aristocrat with learned men. Eugene de Rastignac is one of
those extremely clever young men who try all things, and seem to sound
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Light of Western Stars by Zane Grey: hated to do so for fear of the nameless danger Florence had
mentioned.
Madeline listened for the pounding of pursuing hoofs in her rear.
Involuntarily she glanced back. On the mile or more of gray
level between her and the ridge there was not a horse, a man, or
anything living. She wheeled to look back on the other side,
down the valley slope.
The sight of Florence riding Majesty in zigzag flight before a
whole troop of vaqueros blanched Madeline's cheek and made her
grip the pommel of her saddle in terror. That strange gait of
her roan was not his wonderful stride. Could Majesty be running
The Light of Western Stars |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: before she arrived; so that Sylvie was reduced to wandering from table
to table as an onlooker, the players glancing at her with scornful
eyes. At Madame Julliard senior's house, they played whist, a game
Sylvie did not know.
The old maid at last understood that she was under a ban; but she had
no conception of the reason of it. She fancied herself an object of
jealousy to all these persons. After a time she and her brother
received no invitations, but they still persisted in paying evening
visits. Satirical persons made fun of them,--not spitefully, but
amusingly; inveigling them to talk absurdly about the eggs in their
cornice, and their wonderful cellar of wine, the like of which was not
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