| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: in the centre of which the silhouette of Juana was clearly defined;
the consecutive movement of the arms, and the attitude, gave evidence
that she was arranging her hair for the night.
"Is she alone?" Montefiore asked himself; "could I, without danger,
lower a letter filled with coin and strike it against that circular
window in her hiding-place?"
At once he wrote a note, the note of a man exiled by his family to
Elba, the note of a degraded marquis now a mere captain of equipment.
Then he made a cord of whatever he could find that was capable of
being turned into string, filled the note with a few silver crowns,
and lowered it in the deepest silence to the centre of that spherical
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: What he most expected was silence--in other words defiance.
But he prayed that, as he imagined it, his shot might bring them down.
It did bring, by three o'clock, a note, delivered by a footman;
a note addressed in Urbain de Bellegarde's handsome English hand.
It ran as follows:--
"I cannot deny myself the satisfaction of letting you know that I return
to Paris, to-morrow, with my mother, in order that we may see my sister
and confirm her in the resolution which is the most effectual reply
to your audacious pertinacity.
HENRI-URBAIN DE BELLEGARDE."
Newman put the letter into his pocket, and continued
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott: the ladies as they passed, or even presume to raise his head
until the cessation of the music should make all men aware that
they were lodged in their gallery, not to be gazed on by the
curious eye.
This superstitious observance of Oriental reverence to the fair
sex called forth from Queen Berengaria some criticisms very
unfavourable to Saladin and his country. But their den, as the
royal fair called it, being securely closed and guarded by their
sable attendants, she was under the necessity of contenting
herself with seeing, and laying aside for the present the still
more exquisite pleasure of being seen.
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