| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: "You call such infamous conduct a trick?" cried Madame de la Baudraye,
swallowing down a few tears that dried up with the fire of outraged
pride.
She leaned back in the corner of the chaise, crossed her arms, and
gazed out at the Loire and the landscape, at anything rather than at
Lousteau. The journalist put on his most ingratiating tone, and talked
till they reached La Baudraye, where Dinah fled indoors, trying not to
be seen by any one. In her agitation she threw herself on a sofa and
burst into tears.
"If I am an object of horror to you, of aversion or scorn, I will go,"
said Lousteau, who had followed her. And he threw himself at her feet.
The Muse of the Department |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: Comedie Francaise. Fernand Rodays thus described the widow
in the Figaro: "She looks more than her age, of moderate
height, well made, neither blatant nor ill at ease, with nothing
of the air of a woman of the town. Her hands are small. Her
bust is flat, and her back round, her hair quite white. Beneath
her brows glitter two jet-black eyes--the eyes of a tigress, that
seem to breathe hatred and revenge."
Gaudry was interrogated first. Asked by the President the motive
of his crime, he answered, "I was mad for Madame Gras; I would
have done anything she told me. I had known her as a child, I
had been brought up with her. Then I saw her again. I loved
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Case of the Golden Bullet by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: is that his genius - for the man has undeniable genius - will always
make concessions to his heart just at the moment when he is about
to do something great - and his triumph is lost."
Horn looked up at his superior, whom, in spite of his good nature,
he knew to be a sharp, keen, capable police official. "I forgot
you have known Muller longer than the rest of us," he said. "What
was that you said about his heart?"
"I said that it is one of those inconvenient hearts that will always
make itself noticeable at the wrong time. Muller's heart has played
several tricks on the police department, which has, at other times,
profited so well by his genius. He is a strange mixture. While he
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