| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: "Monsieur," said the daughter, falling at Madame Grandet's knees, "my
mother is ill. Look at her; do not kill her."
Grandet was frightened by the pallor which overspread his wife's face,
usually so yellow.
"Nanon, help me to bed," said the poor woman in a feeble voice; "I am
dying--"
Nanon gave her mistress an arm, Eugenie gave her another; but it was
only with infinite difficulty that they could get her upstairs, she
fell with exhaustion at every step. Grandet remained alone. However,
in a few moments he went up six or eight stairs and called out,--
"Eugenie, when your mother is in bed, come down."
Eugenie Grandet |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: "What made you think that?"
"I told her I thought you were rich."
"And what put that idea into your head?"
"I don't know; the way you talked."
"Dear me, I must talk differently now," I declared.
"I'm sorry to say it's not the case."
"Well," said Miss Tita, "I think that in Venice the forestieri,
in general, often give a great deal for something that after all isn't much."
She appeared to make this remark with a comforting intention, to wish to
remind me that if I had been extravagant I was not really foolishly singular.
We walked together along the sala, and as I took its magnificent
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: constable stuck by every lamp-post, and every second person we meet
between this and Palace Yard is an obvious `tec.' It will get on
his nerves presently. I say, these foreign scoundrels aren't
likely to throw something at him - are they? It would be a
national calamity. The country can't spare him."
"Not to mention yourself. He leans on your arm," suggested the
Assistant Commissioner soberly. "You would both go."
"It would be an easy way for a young man to go down into history?
Not so many British Ministers have been assassinated as to make it
a minor incident. But seriously now - "
"I am afraid that if you want to go down into history you'll have
The Secret Agent |
