| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: "You come to a weak woman with your purpose definitely planned
out. You say--`For a certain length of time she will talk to me
of her husband, then of God, and then of the inevitable
consequences. But I will use and abuse the ascendancy I shall
gain over her; I will make myself indispensable; all the bonds of
habit, all the misconstructions of outsiders, will make for me;
and at length, when our liaison is taken for granted by all the
world, I shall be this woman's master.'--Now, be frank; these are
your thoughts! Oh! you calculate, and you say that you love.
Shame on you! You are enamoured? Ah! that I well believe! You
wish to possess me, to have me for your mistress, that is all!
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: bordered by a long fringe of jagged rocks, of the most whimsical shapes.
Some hundreds of birds lived there nestled in the holes of the stone;
Herbert, jumping over the rocks, startled a whole flock of these winged
creatures.
"Oh!" cried he, "those are not gulls nor sea-mews!"
"What are they then?" asked Pencroft.
"Upon my word, one would say they were pigeons!"
"Just so, but these are wild or rock pigeons. I recognize them by the
double band of black on the wing, by the white tail, and by their slate-
colored plumage. But if the rock-pigeon is good to eat, its eggs must be
excellent, and we will soon see how many they may have left in their
The Mysterious Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: had been a butcher, but that was all nothing. She was a fine woman,
had had a decent education, was brought forward by some cousins,
thrown by chance into Mr Elliot's company, and fell in love with him;
and not a difficulty or a scruple was there on his side,
with respect to her birth. All his caution was spent in being secured
of the real amount of her fortune, before he committed himself.
Depend upon it, whatever esteem Mr Elliot may have for his own situation
in life now, as a young man he had not the smallest value for it.
His chance for the Kellynch estate was something, but all the honour
of the family he held as cheap as dirt. I have often heard him declare,
that if baronetcies were saleable, anybody should have his
Persuasion |
