| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Professor by Charlotte Bronte: Byron excited her; Scott she loved; Wordsworth only she puzzled
at, wondered over, and hesitated to pronounce an opinion upon.
But whether she read to me, or talked with me; whether she teased
me in French, or entreated me in English; whether she jested with
wit, or inquired with deference; narrated with interest, or
listened with attention; whether she smiled at me or on me,
always at nine o'clock I was left abandoned. She would extricate
herself from my arms, quit my side, take her lamp, and be gone.
Her mission was upstairs; I have followed her sometimes and
watched her. First she opened the door of the dortoir (the
pupils' chamber), noiselessly she glided up the long room between
The Professor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: over again, I'm told. Anybody heard anything of it? Going to
make it a reg'lar smartgoin', enterprisin' place--kind of
Crystal Pallas."
"Earthquake and a pestilence before you get that," my uncle would
mutter, to the infinite delight of every one, and add something
inaudible about "Cold Mutton Fat."...
III
We were torn apart by a financial accident to my uncle of which I
did not at first grasp the full bearings. He had developed what
I regarded as an innocent intellectual recreation which he called
stock-market meteorology. I think he got the idea from one use
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: "Which police do you mean?" asked Fromenteau.
"There are several?"
"As many as five," replied the man. "Criminal, the head of which was
Vidoeq; secret police, which keeps an eye on the other police, the
head of it being always unknown; political police,--that's Fouche's.
Then there's the police of Foreign Affairs, and finally, the palace
police (of the Emperor, Louis XVIII., etc.), always squabbling with
that of the quai Malaquais. It came to an end under Monsieur Decazes.
I belonged to the police of Louis XVIII.; I'd been in it since 1793,
with that poor Contenson."
The four gentlemen looked at each other with one thought: "How many
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