| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: first go in, that five francs would be the least they'd get out of
your waistcoat pocket; but nothing is ever extracted beyond ten sous
for combing and frizzing your hair, or twenty sous for cutting and
frizzing. Elegant dressing-tables stand about among the jardinieres;
water is laid on to the washstands; enormous mirrors reproduce the
whole figure. Therefore don't look astonished. When the client (that's
the elegant word substituted by Marius for the ignoble word customer),
--when the client appears at the door, Marius gives him a glance which
appraises him: to Marius you are a HEAD, more or less susceptible of
occupying his mind. To him there's no mankind; there are only heads."
"We let you hear Marius on all the notes of his scale," said Bixiou,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie: "My touchiness about trifles, dear master and mistress."
Then one or more of them would break down altogether; Nana at
the thought, "It's true, it's true, they ought not to have had a
dog for a nurse." Many a time it was Mr. Darling who put the
handkerchief to Nana's eyes.
"That fiend!" Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the
echo of it, but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was
something in the right-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her
not to call Peter names.
They would sit there in the empty nursery, recalling fondly
every smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so
Peter Pan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Main Street by Sinclair Lewis: The horses and the buffalo robe were covered with snow; her
face was wet; the thin butt of the whip held a white ridge.
The air became colder. The snowflakes were harder; they
shot in level lines, clawing at her face.
She could not see a hundred feet ahead.
Kennicott was stern. He bent forward, the reins firm in his
coonskin gauntlets. She was certain that he would get through.
He always got through things.
Save for his presence, the world and all normal living
disappeared. They were lost in the boiling snow. He leaned close
to bawl, "Letting the horses have their heads. They'll get us
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