| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: to regard our friendship with equanimity. But that is because they
do not know of the link that binds us, of my amiable connection
via Jamaica with Mr. Ledbetter's past.
About that past he displays an anxious modesty. "I do not KNOW what
I should do if it became known," he says; and repeats, impressively,
"I do not know WHAT I should do." As a matter of fact, I doubt if
he would do anything except get very red about the ears. But that
will appear later; nor will I tell here of our first encounter,
since, as a general rule--though I am prone to break it--the end
of a story should come after, rather than before, the beginning.
And the beginning of the story goes a long way back; indeed, it is
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: dear boy, you are kind-hearted; I wish I could repay you for your
kindness, but I have nothing to give you now, save the blessing
of a dying man. Ah! if I could only see Delphine, to tell her to
pay my debt to you. If the other cannot come, bring Delphine to
me at any rate. Tell her that unless she comes, you will not love
her any more. She is so fond of you that she will come to me
then. Give me something to drink! There is a fire in my bowels.
Press something against my forehead! If my daughters would lay
their hands there, I think I should get better. . . . MON DIEU!
who will recover their money for them when I am gone? . . . I
will manufacture vermicelli out in Odessa; I will go to Odessa
Father Goriot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling: skipped into the house, and they slammed the door in the crowd's face.
'"You go there," says a soldier, and shoves me into an empty
room, where I catched my first breath since I'd left the barge.
Presently I heard plates rattling next door - there were only
folding doors between - and a cork drawn. "I tell you," some one
shouts with his mouth full, "it was all that sulky ass Sieyes' fault.
Only my speech to the Five Hundred saved the situation."
'"Did it save your coat?" says Talleyrand. "I hear they tore it
when they threw you out. Don't gasconade to me. You may be in
the road of victory, but you aren't there yet."
'Then I guessed t'other man was Boney. He stamped about and
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