| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: descendants, even at so long an interval as ourselves. Their
immediate posterity, the generation next to the early emigrants,
wore the blackest shade of Puritanism, and so darkened the
national visage with it, that all the subsequent years have not
sufficed to clear it up. We have yet to learn again the
forgotten art of gaiety.
The picture of human life in the market-place, though its general
tint was the sad gray, brown, or black of the English emigrants,
was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue. A party of Indians
-- in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deerskin
The Scarlet Letter |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Albert Savarus by Honore de Balzac: success was absolute and complete. My client was innocent; I very
dramatically secured the arrest of the real criminals, who had
come forward as witnesses. In short, the Court and the public were
united in their admiration. I managed to save the examining
magistrate's pride by pointing out the impossibility of detecting
a plot so skilfully planned.
"Then I had to fight a case for my merchant, and won his suit. The
Cathedral Chapter next chose me to defend a tremendous action
against the town, which had been going on for four years; I won
that. Thus, after three trials, I had become the most famous
advocate of Franche-Comte.
Albert Savarus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: curtain. One of them, straining forward and widening the hole with
her fingers in order the better to observe things, was scanning the
house beyond.
"I see him," said she sharply. "Oh, what a mug!"
Horrified, Bordenave had much ado not to give her a kick. But the
prince smiled and looked pleased and excited by the remark. He
gazed warmly at the little woman who did not care a button for His
Highness, and she, on her part, laughed unblushingly. Bordenave,
however, persuaded the prince to follow him. Muffat was beginning
to perspire; he had taken his hat off. What inconvenienced him most
was the stuffy, dense, overheated air of the place with its strong,
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