| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: During this brief moment they both went through one of those
storms of agitation of which the effects in the soul may be
compared to those of a stone flung into a deep lake. The most
delightful waves of thought rise and follow each other,
indescribable, repeated, and aimless, tossing the heart like the
circular ripples, which for a long time fret the waters, starting
from the point where the stone fell.
Hippolyte returned to the studio bearing the portrait. His easel
was ready with a fresh canvas, and his palette set, his brushes
cleaned, the spot and the light carefully chosen. And till the
dinner hour he worked at the painting with the ardor artists
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: promise to the one, the extreme Orient affords the other. As Roman
Catholicism now looks to America for its strength, so Buddhism
to-day finds its worshippers chiefly in China and Japan.
But though the Japanese may be said to be all Buddhists, Buddhist is
by no means all that they are. At the time of their adoption of the
great Indian faith, the Japanese were already in possession of a
system of superstition which has held its own to this day. In fact,
as the state religion of the land, it has just experienced a
revival, a regalvanizing of its old-time energy, at the hands of
some of the native archaeologists. Its sacred mirror, held up to
Nature, has been burnished anew. Formerly this body of belief was
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: early that morning from London Bridge. Provided he had a favourable
wind, he would no doubt be in France within twenty-four hours; no
doubt he had reckoned on the wind and chosen this route.
Chauvelin, on the other hand, would post to Dover, charter a
vessel there, and undoubtedly reach Calais much about the same time.
Once in Calais, Percy would meet all those who were eagerly waiting
for the noble and brave Scarlet Pimpernel, who had come to rescue them
from horrible and unmerited death. With Chauvelin's eyes now fixed
upon his every movement, Percy would thus not only be endangering his
own life, but that of Suzanne's father, the old Comte de Tournay, and
of those other fugitives who were waiting for him and trusting in him.
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
