| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: "He was in treaty for practice in 1822," said Couture. "It was a bold
thing to do, for he was the son of a poor clerk who never made more
than eighteen hundred francs a year, and his mother sold stamped
paper. But he worked very hard from 1818 to 1822. He was Derville's
fourth clerk when he came; and in 1819 he was second!"
"Desroches?"
"Yes. Desroches, like the rest of us, once groveled in the poverty of
Job. He grew so tired of wearing coats too tight and sleeves too short
for him, that he swallowed down the law in desperation and had just
bought a bare license. He was a licensed attorney, without a penny, or
a client, or any friends beyond our set; and he was bound to pay
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: were less elastic than of yore; they were evidently looking for
something they didn't find. The Dorringtons hadn't re-appeared,
the princes had scattered; wasn't that the beginning of the end?
Mrs. Moreen had lost her reckoning of the famous "days"; her social
calendar was blurred - it had turned its face to the wall.
Pemberton suspected that the great, the cruel discomfiture had been
the unspeakable behaviour of Mr. Granger, who seemed not to know
what he wanted, or, what was much worse, what they wanted. He kept
sending flowers, as if to bestrew the path of his retreat, which
was never the path of a return. Flowers were all very well, but -
Pemberton could complete the proposition. It was now positively
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: What could it all mean? A locked enclosure on a lonely island,
a notorious vivisector, and these crippled and distorted men?
VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA.
MONTGOMERY interrupted my tangle of mystification and suspicion
about one o'clock, and his grotesque attendant followed him
with a tray bearing bread, some herbs and other eatables,
a flask of whiskey, a jug of water, and three glasses and knives.
I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found him watching
me with his queer, restless eyes. Montgomery said he would lunch
with me, but that Moreau was too preoccupied with some work
to come.
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
