| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen: to be sure, but it was a heavy and troublesome business,
and she could not easily forget its having stopped two hours
at Petty France. Half the time would have been enough
for the curricle, and so nimbly were the light horses
disposed to move, that, had not the general chosen to have
his own carriage lead the way, they could have passed it
with ease in half a minute. But the merit of the curricle
did not all belong to the horses; Henry drove so well--so
quietly--without making any disturbance, without parading
to her, or swearing at them: so different from the only
gentleman-coachman whom it was in her power to compare him
Northanger Abbey |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: than the tongue could have given utterance to in hours! They were
silent--yet discoursed, how eloquently? till, after a moment's
reflection, Maria drew her chair by the side of his, and, with a
composed sweetness of voice, and supernatural benignity of
countenance, said, "I must open my whole heart to you; you must be
told who I am, why I am here, and why, telling you I am a wife,
I blush not to"--the blush spoke the rest.
Jemima was again at her elbow, and the restraint of her presence
did not prevent an animated conversation, in which love, sly urchin,
was ever at bo-peep.
So much of heaven did they enjoy, that paradise bloomed around
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Paz by Honore de Balzac: "Paz, my dear," said Laginski, "belongs to a noble family as old and
illustrious as our own. One of the Pazzi of Florence, at the time of
their disasters, fled to Poland, where he settled with some of his
property and founded the Paz family, to which the title of count was
granted. This family, which distinguished itself greatly in the
glorious days of our royal republic, became rich. The graft from the
tree that was felled in Italy flourished so vigorously in Poland that
there are several branches of the family still there. I need not tell
you that some are rich and some are poor. Our Paz is the scion of a
poor branch. He was an orphan, without other fortune than his sword,
when he served in the regiment of the Grand Duke Constantine at the
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