| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Droll Stories, V. 1 by Honore de Balzac: handsome as an abbot, and so high and mighty that the admiral who came
to see it, said it was a beast of the first quality. This cursed horse
scented the pretty mare; like a cunning beast, neither neighed nor
gave vent to any equine ejaculation, but when she was close to the
road, leaped over forty rows of vines and galloped after her, pawing
the ground with his iron shoes, discharging the artillery of a lover
who longs for an embrace, giving forth sounds to set the strongest
teeth on edge, and so loudly, that the people of Champy heard it and
were much terrified thereat.
Cochegrue, suspecting the affair, makes for the moors, spurs his
amorous mare, relying upon her rapid pace, and indeed, the good mare
 Droll Stories, V. 1 |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: pleasure written in them.
"Come, then, my love," she said, returning to her first idea, "wouldst
thou please me?"
"I would do all that thou wouldst, and even that thou wouldst not,"
answered De Marsay, with a laugh. He had recovered his foppish ease,
as he took the resolve to let himself go to the climax of his good
fortune, looking neither before nor after. Perhaps he counted,
moreover, on his power and his capacity of a man used to adventures,
to dominate this girl a few hours later and learn all her secrets.
"Well," said she, "let me arrange you as I would like."
Paquita went joyously and took from one of the two chests a robe of
 The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne by Robert Louis Stevenson: and by good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, rather for
convenience of carriage than from any thought that I should want it
on my journey. For more immediate needs I took a leg of cold
mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais, an empty bottle to carry milk, an
egg-beater, and a considerable quantity of black bread and white,
like Father Adam, for myself and donkey, only in my scheme of
things the destinations were reversed.
Monastrians, of all shades of thought in politics, had agreed in
threatening me with many ludicrous misadventures, and with sudden
death in many surprising forms. Cold, wolves, robbers, above all
the nocturnal practical joker, were daily and eloquently forced on
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