| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Is Dian now in all her majesty!
Yet scarce a guest perceived that she was there,
Until the Governor, rising from his chair,
Played slightly with his ruffles, then looked down,
And said unto the Reverend Arthur Brown:
"This is my birthday: it shall likewise be
My wedding-day; and you shall marry me!"
The listening guests were greatly mystified,
None more so than the rector, who replied:
"Marry you? Yes, that were a pleasant task,
Your Excellency; but to whom? I ask."
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: of these men of the old school, and if he had their ridiculous side,
he had all their good qualities; and Joseph Lebas, the chief
assistant, an orphan without any fortune, was in his mind destined to
be the husband of Virginie, his elder daughter. But Joseph did not
share the symmetrical ideas of his master, who would not for an empire
have given his second daughter in marriage before the elder. The
unhappy assistant felt that his heart was wholly given to Mademoiselle
Augustine, the younger. In order to justify this passion, which had
grown up in secret, it is necessary to inquire a little further into
the springs of the absolute government which ruled the old cloth-
merchant's household.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: good friends! We will all go down to dinner to-day, and we'll play
loto every evening for two sous. You shall both be happy. Hey, wife?"
"Alas! I wish I could, if it would give you pleasure," said the dying
woman; "but I cannot rise from my bed."
"Poor mother," said Grandet, "you don't know how I love you! and you
too, my daughter!" He took her in his arms and kissed her. "Oh, how
good it is to kiss a daughter when we have been angry with her! There,
mother, don't you see it's all over now? Go and put that away,
Eugenie," he added, pointing to the case. "Go, don't be afraid! I
shall never speak of it again, never!"
Monsieur Bergerin, the celebrated doctor of Saumur, presently arrived.
Eugenie Grandet |
