| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Poor and Proud by Oliver Optic: the meeting between Katy and her sailor friend. It took him all
the evenings for a week to tell the story of his voyage, to which
Mrs. Redburn and her daughter listened with much satisfaction. He
remained at home two months, and then departed on a voyage to the
East Indies.
Master Simon Sneed, after Katy's attempt to serve him, did not
tell her many more large stories about himself, for she
understood him now, and knew that he was not half so great a man
as he pretended to be. In the spring he obtained a situation in a
small retail store where there was not a very wide field for the
exercise of his splendid abilities. He had been idle all winter,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Seraphita by Honore de Balzac: betrayed the glacial weight of age, and communicated an icy influence
to whoever allowed themselves to look long at him,--for he possessed
the magnetic force of torpor. His limited intelligence was only roused
by the sight, the hearing, or the recollection of his mistress. She
was the soul of this wholly material fragment of an existence. Any one
seeing David alone by himself would have thought him a corpse; let
Seraphita enter, let her voice be heard, or a mention of her be made,
and the dead came forth from his grave and recovered speech and
motion. The dry bones were not more truly awakened by the divine
breath in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and never was that apocalyptic
vision better realized than in this Lazarus issuing from the sepulchre
Seraphita |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: Besides, Martial, she expressly told me that she did not intend to
dance."
"Colonel, I will bet a hundred napoleons to your gray horse that she
will dance with me this evening."
"Done!" said the Colonel, putting his hand in the coxcomb's.
"Meanwhile I am going to look for Soulanges; he perhaps knows the
lady, as she seems interested in him."
"You have lost, my good fellow," cried Martial, laughing. "My eyes
have met hers, and I know what they mean. My dear friend, you owe me
no grudge for dancing with her after she has refused you?"
"No, no. Those who laugh last, laugh longest. But I am an honest
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