| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe: feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more let me
implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you.
But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power."
"The Amontillado!" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered
from his astonishment.
"True," I replied; "the Amontillado."
As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones
of which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon un-
covered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these
materials and with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall
up the entrance of the niche.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: any other way than from inn to inn to see buildings and landscapes,
will surely admit the truth of these remarks. The results of middle-
class nepotism may be, at present, merely isolated evils; but the
tendency of existing laws is to increase them. This low-level
despotism can and will cause great disasters, and the events of the
drama about to be played in the valley of Les Aigues will prove it.
The monarchical and imperial systems, more rashly overthrown than
people realize, remedied these abuses by means of certain consecrated
lives, by classifications and categories and by those particular
counterpoises since so absurdly defined as "privileges." There are no
privileges now, when every human being is free to climb the greased
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: analyze his heart, even by recalling to his lips the taste of the
liveliest gratifications that he had ever grasped.
He found himself on the Boulevard Montmartre at the break of day,
gazed stupidly at the retreating carriage, produced two cigars from
his pocket, lit one from the lantern of a good woman who sold brandy
and coffee to workmen and street arabs and chestnut venders--to all
the Parisian populace which begins its work before daybreak; then he
went off, smoking his cigar, and putting his hands in his trousers'
pockets with a devil-may-care air which did him small honor.
"What a good thing a cigar is! That's one thing a man will never tire
of," he said to himself.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
