| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson: "All right. I - I'm very much obliged, of course." And he
proceeded to follow them, thinking in his heart, "But it's bad
form, all the same, to force an obligation on a fellow."
CHAPTER V
Leon strode ahead as if he knew exactly where he was going; the
sobs of Madame were still faintly audible, and no one uttered a
word. A dog barked furiously in a courtyard as they went by; then
the church clock struck two, and many domestic clocks followed or
preceded it in piping tones. And just then Berthelini spied a
light. It burned in a small house on the outskirts of the town,
and thither the party now directed their steps.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: his eyes, as if he were recovering from an illness. Add,
furthermore, that he had white and shapely hands, of which he was
as careful as a pretty woman should be; add that he seemed to be
very well informed, and was decidedly clever, and it should not
be difficult for you to imagine that my traveling companion was
more than worthy of a countess. Indeed, many a girl might have
wished for such a husband, for he was a Vicomte with an income of
twelve or fifteen thousand livres, "to say nothing of
expectations."
About a league out of Pouilly the coach was overturned. My
luckless comrade, thinking to save himself, jumped to the edge of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: The tree was seven inches in diameter when he was born; ten inches
when he died. A little less than ten inches when Milton was born;
seventeen when he died. Then comes a long interval, and this
thread marks out Johnson's life, during which the tree increased
from twenty-two to twenty-nine inches in diameter. Here is the
span of Napoleon's career; - the tree doesn't seem to have minded
it.
I never saw the man yet who was not startled at looking on this
section. I have seen many wooden preachers, - never one like this.
How much more striking would be the calendar counted on the rings
of one of those awful trees which were standing when Christ was on
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
