| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: proved was, that he had already been in the galleys at Toulon.
It was that which lent a bad aspect to his case. However, the man's
examination and the depositions of the witnesses had been completed,
but the lawyer's plea, and the speech of the public prosecutor were
still to come; it could not be finished before midnight. The man
would probably be condemned; the attorney-general was very clever,
and never missed his culprits; he was a brilliant fellow who
wrote verses.
An usher stood at the door communicating with the hall of the Assizes.
He inquired of this usher:--
"Will the door be opened soon, sir?"
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: called "the friend of Julian"; and when his son joined himself
to the Christians, and acknowledged the unseen God, it seemed
like an insult to his father's success. He drove the boy from
his door and disinherited him.
The glittering portico of the serene, haughty house, the
repose of the well-ordered garden, still blooming with belated
flowers, seemed at once to deride and to invite the young
outcast plodding along the dusty road. "This is your
birthright," whispered the clambering rose-trees by the gate; and
the closed portals of carven bronze said: "You have sold it for
a thought--a dream."'
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: at the Golden Fleece. It makes a holiday in Colchis whenever
such a thing happens. For my part, I enjoy it immensely. You
cannot imagine in what a mere twinkling of an eye their hot
breath shrivels a young man into a black cinder."
"Are you sure, beautiful Medea," asked Jason, "quite sure, that
the unguent in the gold box will prove a remedy against those
terrible burns?"
"If you doubt, if you are in the least afraid," said the
princess, looking him in the face by the dim starlight, "you
had better never have been born than to go a step nigher to the
bulls."
Tanglewood Tales |
