| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott: Crag than be pestered with the wealth of Ravenswood Castle."
"And yet," said Lucy, "it was by attention to these minutiae
that my father acquired the property----"
"Which my ancestors sold for lack of it," replied
Ravenswood. "Be it so; a porter still bears but a burden, though
the burden be of gold."
Lucy sighed; she perceived too plainly that her lover held in
scorn the manners and habits of a father to whom she had long
looked up as her best and most partial friend, whose fondness
had often consoled her for her mother's contemptuous harshness.
The lovers soon discovered that they differed upon other and no
The Bride of Lammermoor |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Exiles by Honore de Balzac: lurked in the wrinkles of his face, his look presently assumed the
fixity which seems to gaze on an object invisible to the ordinary
organs of sight. His eyes, no doubt, were seeing then the remoter
images which the grave has in store for us.
Never, perhaps, had this man presented so grand an aspect. A terrible
struggle was going on in his soul, and reacted on his outer frame;
strong man as he seemed to be, he bent as a reed bows under the breeze
that comes before a storm. Godefroid stood motionless, speechless,
spellbound; some inexplicable force nailed him to the floor; and, as
happens when our attention takes us out of ourselves while watching a
fire or a battle, he was wholly unconscious of his body.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: Semitic type reappears in its purity and nobility in a daughter of
Israel. Noemi was guarded by two servants, fanatical Jewesses, to say
nothing of an advanced-guard, a Polish Jew, Abramko by name, once
involved in a fabulous manner in political troubles, from which Elie
Magus saved him as a business speculation. Abramko, porter of the
silent, grim, deserted mansion, divided his office and his lodge with
three remarkably ferocious animals--an English bull-dog, a
Newfoundland dog, and another of the Pyrenean breed.
Behold the profound observations of human nature upon which Elie Magus
based his feeling of security, for secure he felt; he left home
without misgivings, slept with both ears shut, and feared no attempt
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