| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: ran to the door, and disappeared. This event produced a great
sensation. The card-players paused. Every one questioned his neighbor.
The murmur of voices swelled, and groups gathered.
"Can Monsieur Taillefer be--" I began.
"--dead?" said my sarcastic neighbor. "You would wear the gayest
mourning, I fancy!"
"But what has happened to him?"
"The poor dear man," said the mistress of the house, "is subject to
attacks of a disease the name of which I never can remember, though
Monsieur Brousson has often told it to me; and he has just been seized
with one."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: de Gondreville?"
"Why, don't you know?"
I leaned forward and recognized the two persons who were talking as
members of that inquisitive genus which, in Paris, busies itself
exclusively with the /Whys/ and /Hows/. /Where does he come from? Who
are they? What's the matter with him? What has she done?/ They lowered
their voices and walked away in order to talk more at their ease on
some retired couch. Never was a more promising mine laid open to
seekers after mysteries. No one knew from what country the Lanty
family came, nor to what source--commerce, extortion, piracy, or
inheritance--they owed a fortune estimated at several millions. All
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: extinguished claims?
Machiavel. I hold him for a faithful servant of the king.
Regent. Were he so inclined, what important service could he not render to
the government? Whereas, now, without benefiting himself, he has caused
us unspeakable vexation. His banquets and entertainment have done more
to unite the nobles and to knit them together than the most dangerous
secret associations. With his toasts, his guests have drunk in a permanent
intoxication, a giddy frenzy, that never subsides. How often have his
facetious jests stirred up the minds of the populace? and what an
excitement was produced among the mob by the new liveries, and the
extravagant devices of his followers!
Egmont |
