| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: light, horror and beauty, pleasure and danger, paradise and hell,
which had already been met with in this adventure, was resumed in the
capricious and sublime being with which De Marsay dallied. All the
utmost science or the most refined pleasure, all that Henri could know
of that poetry of the senses which is called love, was excelled by the
treasures poured forth by this girl, whose radiant eyes gave the lie
to none of the promises which they made.
She was an Oriental poem, in which shone the sun that Saadi, that
Hafiz, have set in their pulsing strophes. Only, neither the rhythm of
Saadi, nor that of Pindar, could have expressed the ecstasy--full of
confusion and stupefaction--which seized the delicious girl when the
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tom Grogan by F. Hopkinson Smith: more willingly because he wanted to settle certain affairs of his
own. Jennie had avoided him lately,--why he could not tell,--and
he determined, before communicating to his employer the results of
his inquiries about Tom, to know exactly what his own chances were
with the girl. He could slip over to the house while Tom was in
the city, and leave before she returned.
On his way, the next day, he robbed a garden fence of a mass of
lilacs, breaking off the leaves as he walked. When he reached the
door of the big stable he stopped for a moment, glanced cautiously
in to see if he could find any preparations for the new work, and
then, making a mental note of the surroundings, followed the path
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde: seen him for really the last time, and he has refused to take back
the little things he has given one, and promised never to
communicate with one again, or to write one any foolish letters, he
should be perfectly broken-hearted, and telegraph to one all day
long, and send one little notes every half-hour by a private
hansom, and dine quite alone at the club, so that every one should
know how unhappy he was. And after a whole dreadful week, during
which one has gone about everywhere with one's husband, just to
show how absolutely lonely one was, he may be given a third last
parting, in the evening, and then, if his conduct has been quite
irreproachable, and one has behaved really badly to him, he should
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