| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: us?"
"I shall confess the gospel," replied Lecamus, simply, looking at the
windows of his father's back-shop.
The family lamp, standing on the table where his father was making up
his books for the day, spoke to him, no doubt, of the joys of family
and the peaceful existence which he now renounced. The vision was
rapid, but complete. His mind took in, at a glance, the burgher
quarter full of its own harmonies, where his happy childhood had been
spent, where lived his promised bride, Babette Lallier, where all
things promised him a sweet and full existence; he saw the past; he
saw the future, and he sacrificed it, or, at any rate, he staked it
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: prospects; for, as is likewise the case with the Popedom, nobody
ever becomes President without taking a name other than his own.
While his friends were doing their best to make him President,
Old Stony Phiz, as he was called, set out on a visit to the
valley where he was born. Of course, he had no other object than
to shake hands with his fellow-citizens and neither thought nor
cared about any effect which his progress through the country
might have upon the election. Magnificent preparations were made
to receive the illustrious statesman; a cavalcade of horsemen set
forth to meet him at the boundary line of the State, and all the
people left their business and gathered along the wayside to see
The Snow Image |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: and then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring
brook, that babbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard
by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for a
church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting
forth with the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily
resounding within it from morning to night; swallows and martins
skimmed twittering about the eaves; an rows of pigeons, some with
one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their
heads under their wings or buried in their bosoms, and others
swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying
the sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting in
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
