| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: The host said to him, "There is the fire. The supper is cooking
in the pot. Come and warm yourself, comrade."
He approached and seated himself near the hearth. He stretched
out his feet, which were exhausted with fatigue, to the fire;
a fine odor was emitted by the pot. All that could be distinguished
of his face, beneath his cap, which was well pulled down,
assumed a vague appearance of comfort, mingled with that other
poignant aspect which habitual suffering bestows.
It was, moreover, a firm, energetic, and melancholy profile.
This physiognomy was strangely composed; it began by seeming humble,
and ended by seeming severe. The eye shone beneath its lashes
Les Miserables |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: of winning a few gold pieces. My friend, too, had some Turkish tobacco
brought home from Constantinople by a sailor, and he gave me quite as
much as we had taken from Z. Marcas. I conveyed the splendid cargo
into port, and we went in triumph to repay our neighbor with a tawny
wig of Turkish tobacco for his dark /Caporal/.
"You are determined not to be my debtors," said he. "You are giving me
gold for copper.--You are boys--good boys----"
The sentences, spoken in varying tones, were variously emphasized. The
words were nothing, but the expression!--That made us friends of ten
years' standing at once.
Marcas, on hearing us coming, had covered up his papers; we understood
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Island Nights' Entertainments by Robert Louis Stevenson: to leave you and your mother alone, what did Namu do?"
"Stop away all-e-same," says Uma.
"I fear the dog has returned to his vomit," said Mr. Tarleton.
"And now what am I to do for you? I will speak to Namu, I will
warn him he is observed; it will be strange if he allow anything to
go on amiss when he is put upon his guard. At the same time, this
precaution may fail, and then you must turn elsewhere. You have
two people at hand to whom you might apply. There is, first of
all, the priest, who might protect you by the Catholic interest;
they are a wretchedly small body, but they count two chiefs. And
then there is old Faiaso. Ah! if it had been some years ago you
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