| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: clear circuit of the house, and not once pausing or looking to
right or left! I confess I was fairly baffled. I sank back on
the seat I had left, and said to myself that this was the lamest
of all conclusions. I was sure that she had exchanged no word
with anyone. I was equally sure that she had not detected my
presence behind her. Why, then, had she made this strange
promenade, alone, unprotected, an hour after nightfall? No dog
had bayed, no one had moved, she had not once paused, or
listened, like a person expecting a rencontre. I could not make
it out. And I came no nearer to solving it, though I lay awake
an hour beyond my usual time.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: received."
"I wish to have the family bound over by a surety of four hundred
thousand francs, and by a written document stating the nature of the
compromise, so as to keep a loaded cannon pointed at its heart."
"We agree," said Chesnel, without admitting that the three hundred
thousand francs was in his possession; "but the amount must be
deposited with a third party and returned to the family after your
election and repayment."
"No; after the marriage of my grand-niece, Mlle. Duval. She will very
likely have four million francs some day; the reversion of our
property (mine and my wife's) shall be settled upon her by her
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: had been laid waste by the golden hordes of Ghengis Khan and hidden
for a very long time from the Slavonic chronicler as behind an
impenetrable curtain. A shrewd man, Guedimin appointed a Slavonic
prince to rule over the city and permitted the inhabitants to practise
their own faith, Greek Christianity. Prior to the Mongol invasion,
which brought conflagration and ruin, and subjected Russia to a
two-century bondage, cutting her off from Europe, a state of chaos
existed and the separate tribes fought with one another constantly and
for the most petty reasons. Mutual depredations were possible owing to
the absence of mountain ranges; there were no natural barriers against
sudden attack. The openness of the steppe made the people war-like.
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
