| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from An Historical Mystery by Honore de Balzac: arrested. The First Consul likes the /ci-devants/, and cannot endure
the republicans--simple enough; if he wants a throne he must needs
strangle Liberty. Keep the matter a secret between us. This is what I
will do; I will stay here till to-morrow and /be blind/; but beware of
the agent; that cursed Provencal is the devil's own valet; he has the
ear of Fouche just as I have that of the First Consul."
"If the Messieurs Simeuse are here," said the abbe, "I would give ten
pints of my blood and my right arm to save them; but if Mademoiselle
de Cinq-Cygne is in the secret she has not--and this I swear on my
eternal salvation--betrayed it in any way, neither has she done me the
honor to consult me. I am now very glad of her discretion, if
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from O Pioneers! by Willa Cather: what you once said about the graveyard, and
the old story writing itself over? Only it is we
who write it, with the best we have."
They paused on the last ridge of the pasture,
overlooking the house and the windmill and the
stables that marked the site of John Bergson's
homestead. On every side the brown waves of
the earth rolled away to meet the sky.
"Lou and Oscar can't see those things," said
O Pioneers! |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: bar at the mouth of the river which ought to have
been kept down, but the authorities of the State
were piously busy gilding afresh the great Buddhist
Pagoda just then, and I suppose had no money to
spare for dredging operations. I don't know how
it may be now, but at the time I speak of that sand-
bank was a great nuisance to the shipping. One of
its consequences was that vessels of a certain
draught of water, like Hermann's or mine, could not
complete their loading in the river. After taking
in as much as possible of their cargo, they had to
Falk |
