| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: four o'clock in the afternoon, when he was awakened by Mme. de
Bargeton's servant, and learning the hour, made a hasty toilet and
hurried downstairs.
Louise was sitting in the shabby inn sitting-room. Hotel accommodation
is a blot on the civilization of Paris; for with all its pretensions
to elegance, the city as yet does not boast a single inn where a well-
to-do traveler can find the surroundings to which he is accustomed at
home. To Lucien's just-awakened, sleep-dimmed eyes, Louise was hardly
recognizable in this cheerless, sunless room, with the shabby window-
curtains, the comfortless polished floor, the hideous furniture bought
second-hand, or much the worse for wear.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: lips, by the coldness or the sweetness of her smile. When Emilie meant
to conquer a heart, her pure voice did not lack melody; but she could
also give it a sort of curt clearness when she was minded to paralyze
a partner's indiscreet tongue. Her colorless face and alabaster brow
were like the limpid surface of a lake, which by turns is rippled by
the impulse of a breeze and recovers its glad serenity when the air is
still. More than one young man, a victim to her scorn, accused her of
acting a part; but she justified herself by inspiring her detractors
with the desire to please her, and then subjecting them to all her
most contemptuous caprice. Among the young girls of fashion, not one
knew better than she how to assume an air of reserve when a man of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: too severe in his self-condemnation. For how else could he have
interpreted the scene he beheld, his preconceptions being what
they were?
That which he had already been suspecting, he now accounted proven
to him. Aline had been wanting in candour on the subject of her
feelings towards M. de La Tour d'Azyr. It was, he supposed, a
woman's way to be secretive in such matters, and he must not blame
her. Nor could he blame her in his heart for having succumbed to
the singular charm of such a man as the Marquis - for not even his
hostility could blind him to M. de La Tour d'Azyr's attractions.
That she had succumbed was betrayed, he thought, by the weakness
|
