| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Melmoth Reconciled by Honore de Balzac: else, isn't it? We all hold shares in the great Speculation of
Eternity."
"I tell you this," said Claparon angrily, "that I am just the man to
lend you a slap in the face. When a man is in trouble, it is no time
to pay silly jokes on him."
"I am talking seriously," said Castanier, and he drew a bundle of
notes from his pocket.
"In the first place," said Claparon, "I am not going to sell my soul
to the Devil for a trifle. I want five hundred thousand francs before
I strike----"
"Who talks of stinting you?" asked Castanier, cutting him short. "You
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled
him! The cannon had taken an hand in the game. As he shook
his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he
heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and
in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in
the forest beyond.
"They will not do that again," he thought; "the next time
they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon
the gun; the smoke will apprise me -- the report arrives too
late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun."
Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round -- spinning
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: "exhibition" was neglected, turned, in a fit of jealous spleen, at
last on Socrates.[6]
[6] "The Syracusan is 'civil as an orange, and of that jealous
complexion.'"
The Syr. They call you Socrates. Are you that person commonly
nicknamed the thinker?[7]
[7] Apparently he has been to see the "Clouds" (exhibited first in 423
B.C.), and has conceived certain ideas concerning Socrates, "a
wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into
the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause."
Plat. "Apol." 18 B, 19 C. "Clouds," 101, 360, {khair o presbuta
The Symposium |
