| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: as a marble column.
" 'How much do you want?'
" 'One hundred thousand francs for three years,' said the Count.
" 'That is possible,' said Gobseck, and then from a mahogany box
(Gobseck's jewel-case) he drew out a faultlessly adjusted pair of
scales!
"He weighed the diamonds, calculating the value of stones and setting
at sight (Heaven knows how!), delight and severity struggling in the
expression of his face the meanwhile. The Countess had plunged in a
kind of stupor; to me, watching her, it seemed that she was fathoming
the depths of the abyss into which she had fallen. There was remorse
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: spoken if I could have helped you."
"But you must have despised me."
"I've told you that would have been simpler."
"But how could you go on like this--hating the money?"
"I knew you would speak in time. I wanted you, first, to hate it
as I did."
He gazed at her with a kind of awe. "You're wonderful," he
murmured. "But you don't yet know the depths I've reached."
She raised an entreating hand. "I don't want to!"
"You're afraid, then, that you'll hate me?"
"No--but that you'll hate ME. Let me understand without your
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: agitation; then she no doubt found an attitude and a look beseeming
the new state of affairs, for she stopped in front of me, held out her
hand, and said in a voice broken by emotion, 'Well, Henri, you are
loyal, noble, and a charming man; I shall never forget you.'
"These were admirable tactics. She was bewitching in this transition
of feeling, indispensable to the situation in which she wished to
place herself in regard to me. I fell into the attitude, the manners,
and the look of a man so deeply distressed, that I saw her too newly
assumed dignity giving way; she looked at me, took my hand, drew me
along almost, threw me on the sofa, but quite gently, and said after a
moment's silence, 'I am dreadfully unhappy, my dear fellow. Do you
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