| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Elixir of Life by Honore de Balzac: giver of the banquet. "There is but one eternal father, and, as
ill luck will have it, he is mine."
The seven Ferrarese, Don Juan's friends, the Prince himself, gave
a cry of horror. Two hundred years later, in the days of Louis
XV., people of taste would have laughed at this witticism. Or was
it, perhaps, that at the outset of an orgy there is a certain
unwonted lucidity of mind? Despite the taper light, the clamor of
the senses, the gleam of gold and silver, the fumes of wine, and
the exquisite beauty of the women, there may perhaps have been in
the depths of the revelers' hearts some struggling glimmer of
reverence for things divine and human, until it was drowned in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Court Life in China by Isaac Taylor Headland: daylight.
If you will go with me at midnight to the great gate which leads
from the Tartar to the Chinese city--the Chien men--you will hear
the wailing creak of its hinges as it swings open, and in a few
moments the air will be filled with the rumbling of carts and the
clatter of the feet of the mules on the stone pavement, as they
take the officials into the audiences with their ruler. If you
will remain with me there till a little before daylight you will
see them, like silent spectres, sitting tailor-fashion on the
bottom of their springless carts, returning to their homes, but
you will ask in vain for any information as to the business they
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Brother of Daphne by Dornford Yates: "Ah," she said. "I've an appointment with him, too. Only mine's
at home. I must be going. I'm keeping him waiting now."
She held out her hand. I looked at it.
"You've made a mistake," I said. "I know for a fact he's going
to be at the Carlton."
"No good! I know the family. The father taught them all the
trick of being able to be in more than one place at the same
time."
"All of them?"
"Yes."
"My dear, you're wrong. You've forgotten Mean. He's got a place
The Brother of Daphne |
