| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: about you. All your blood could not pay for one drop of mine; do you
hear me? By our Lady of Clery! you have committed crimes of lese-
majesty. Did I give you such a pretty wife to make her pale and
weakly? Go back to your own house, and make your preparations for a
long journey."
The king stopped at these words from a habit of cruelty; then he
added:--
"You will leave to-night to attend to my affairs with the government
of Venice. You need be under no anxiety about your wife; I shall take
charge of her at Plessis; she will certainly be safe here. Henceforth
I shall watch over her with greater care than I have done since I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: capturing the Scarlet Pimpernel, when not directed by the cunning hand
and the shrewd brain, which had deadly hate for an incentive.
Evidently, however, the representative of the French
Government had nothing to fear for the moment, at the hands of his
powerful adversary. Blakeney, with his most inane laugh and pleasant
good-nature, was solemnly patting him on the back.
"I am so demmed sorry. . ." he was saying cheerfully, "so very
sorry. . .I seem to have upset you. . .eating soup, too. . .nasty,
awkward thing, soup. . .er. . .Begad!--a friend of mine died once. . .
er. . .choked. . .just like you. . .with a spoonful of soup.
And he smiled shyly, good-humouredly, down at Chauvelin.
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: I smiled at her very sweetly. "Do you know," I said, "I, too, would like
to write a book, on the advisability of caring for daughters, and taking
them for airings and keeping them out of kitchens!"
I think the masculine element must have felt these angry vibrations: they
ceased from singing, and together we climbed out of the wood, to see
Schlingen below us, tucked in a circle of hills, the white houses shining
in the sunlight, "for all the world like eggs in a bird's nest", as Herr
Erchardt declared. We descended upon Schlingen and demanded sour milk with
fresh cream and bread at the Inn of the Golden Stag, a most friendly place,
with tables in a rose-garden where hens and chickens ran riot--even
flopping upon the disused tables and pecking at the red checks on the
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