| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: yards from the hotel Maulincour, one of these ephemeral barriers was
erected before a house which was then being built of blocks of free-
stone. The day after the event we have just related, at the moment
when the Baron de Maulincour was passing this scaffolding in his
cabriolet on his way to see Madame Jules, a stone, two feet square,
which was being raised to the upper storey of this building, got loose
from the ropes and fell, crushing the baron's servant who was behind
the cabriolet. A cry of horror shook both the scaffold and the masons;
one of them, apparently unable to keep his grasp on a pole, was in
danger of death, and seemed to have been touched by the stone as it
passed him.
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: Have mercy, Jules!"
"You have betrayed me--"
"Ah! Jules, you think so now, but soon you will know all."
"But this Ferragus, this convict whom you go to see, a man enriched by
crime, if he does not belong to you, if you do not belong to him--"
"Oh, Jules!"
"Speak! Is he your mysterious benefactor?--the man to whom we owe our
fortune, as persons have said already?"
"Who said that?"
"A man whom I killed in a duel."
"Oh, God! one death already!"
Ferragus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: "Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that
pretty clean town you spoke of?"
"I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin.
Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great
many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance
before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it.
Shall I let you hear me sing now?"
She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a
specimen of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she
came and placed herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands
demurely before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to
Jane Eyre |
