| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells: sailormen, and stood beside them.
The curtain came festooning slowly down, the music ceased, the
lights in the auditorium glowed out, and Ann Veronica woke out of
her confused dream of involuntary and commanding love in a glory
of sound and colors to discover that Ramage was sitting close
beside her with one hand resting lightly on her waist. She made a
quick movement, and the hand fell away.
"By God! Ann Veronica," he said, sighing deeply. "This stirs
one."
She sat quite still looking at him.
"I wish you and I had drunk that love potion," he said.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Two Brothers by Honore de Balzac: Oh! the frames are gilt, and besides, they are very funny; I will
put--"
"Well done, uncle!" cried Joseph, enchanted; "I'll make you copies of
the same dimensions, which you can put into the frames."
"But that will take your time, and you will want canvas and colors,"
said Flore. "You will have to spend money. Come, Pere Rouget, offer
your nephew a hundred francs for each copy; here are twenty-seven
pictures, and I think there are eleven very big ones in the garret
which ought to cost double,--call the whole four thousand francs. Oh,
yes," she went on, turning to Joseph, "your uncle can well afford to
pay you four thousand francs for making the copies, since he keeps the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: atmospheric gradations are carefully observed, and yet in spite of
your conscientious labor I cannot believe that this beautiful body has
the warm breath of life. If I put my hand on that firm, round throat I
shall find it cold as marble. No, no, my friend, blood does not run
beneath that ivory skin; the purple tide of life does not swell those
veins, nor stir those fibres which interlace like net-work below the
translucent amber of the brow and breast. This part palpitates with
life, but that other part is not living; life and death jostle each
other in every detail. Here, you have a woman; there, a statue; here
again, a dead body. Your creation is incomplete. You have breathed
only a part of your soul into the well-beloved work. The torch of
|
