| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: Madame la Baronne de Maulincour had a friend in the old Vidame de
Pamiers, formerly a commander of the Knights of Malta. This was one of
those undying friendships founded on sexagenary ties which nothing can
weaken, because at the bottom of such intimacies there are certain
secrets of the human heart, delightful to guess at when we have the
time, insipid to explain in twenty words, and which might make the
text of a work in four volumes as amusing as the Doyen de Killerine,--
a work about which young men talk and judge without having read it.
Auguste de Maulincour belonged therefore to the faubourg Saint-Germain
through his grandmother and the vidame, and it sufficed him to date
back two centuries to take the tone and opinions of those who assume
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Poems by T. S. Eliot: You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: at this point many a one has failed.
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey's end.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends...."
I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends
For what she has said to me?
You will see me any morning in the park
Reading the comics and the sporting page.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Pool of Blood in the Pastor's Study by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: iron lock that could be opened only with the greatest noise and
trouble. This door was locked and closed as it had been since
yesterday morning. Everything in the vestry was in perfect order;
the priest's garments and the censers all in their places. Muller
assured himself of this before he left the little room. He then
opened the glass door that led down by a few steps into the church.
It was a beautiful old church, and it was a rich church also. It
was built in the older Gothic style, and its heavy, broad-arched
walls, its massive columns would have made it look cold and bare
had not handsome tapestries, the gift of the lady of the manor,
covered the walls. Fine old pictures hung here and there above the
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