The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: somewhere in the neighborhood, and he had had to hold an inquest
on him there, it would have been interesting, important, and
perhaps he might even have been afraid to sleep in the next room
to the corpse. Here, nearly a thousand miles from Moscow, all
this was seen somehow in a different light; it was not life,
they were not human beings, but something only existing
"according to the regulation," as Loshadin said; it would leave
not the faintest trace in the memory, and would be forgotten as
soon as he, Lyzhin, drove away from Syrnya. The fatherland, the
real Russia, was Moscow, Petersburg; but here he was in the
provinces, the colonies. When one dreamed of playing a leading
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Frances Waldeaux by Rebecca Davis: There never could be, now. She was too old.
She was tired, too, and very lonely. This man would seat
her on a throne and worship her every day. That would be
pleasant enough.
"I am ashamed of myself," he was saying, "to pursue you
in this way. You have given me no encouragement, I know.
But whenever I go to New York and bone down to work,
something tells me to come back and try again."
Lucy did not answer, and there was a brief silence.
"Of course I'm a fool,"--prodding the ground with his
stick. "But if a man were in a jail cell and knew that
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: "We will pray for him," said Madame Grandet. "Resign yourself to the
will of God."
"Cousin," said Eugenie, "take courage! Your loss is irreparable;
therefore think only of saving your honor."
With the delicate instinct of a woman who intuitively puts her mind
into all things, even at the moment when she offers consolation,
Eugenie sought to cheat her cousin's grief by turning his thoughts
inward upon himself.
"My honor?" exclaimed the young man, tossing aside his hair with an
impatient gesture as he sat up on his bed and crossed his arms. "Ah!
that is true. My uncle said my father had failed." He uttered a heart-
Eugenie Grandet |