| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: the sense to take up with a wealthy woman."
"My friends, give him the benefit of extenuating circumstances," urged
Blondet. "When he escaped the clutches of want, he dropped into the
claws of a very clever man."
"You know what Nucingen is," said Bixiou. "In the early days, Delphine
and Rastignac thought him 'good-natured'; he seemed to regard a wife
as a plaything, an ornament in his house. And that very fact showed me
that the man was square at the base as well as in height," added
Bixiou. "Nucingen makes no bones about admitting that his wife is his
fortune; she is an indispensable chattel, but a wife takes a second
place in the high-pressure life of a political leader and great
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The War in the Air by H. G. Wells: right enough!"
"I say!", said Bert, "where are we starting? I wish you'd
explain. What's this place? I don't understand."
"What!" cried the young man, "you don't understand?"
"No. I'm 'all dazed-like from that crack on the nob I got.
Where ARE we? WHERE are we starting?"
"Don't you know where you are--what this is?"
"Not a bit of it! What's all the swaying and the row?"
"What a lark!" cried the young man. "I say! What a thundering
lark! Don't you know? We're off to America, and you haven't
realised. You've just caught us by a neck. You're on the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters of Two Brides by Honore de Balzac: to do it. I am full of youth and spirit, and can die standing! For
myself, I have no regrets. I am dying as I wished to die, still young
and beautiful, in the perfection of my womanhood.
"As for him, I can see very well now that I should have made his life
miserable. Passion has me in its grips, like a struggling fawn,
impatient of the toils. My groundless jealousy has already wounded him
sorely. When the day came that my suspicions met only indifference--
which in the long run is the rightful meed of all jealousy--well, that
would have been my death. I have had my share of life. There are
people whose names on the muster-roll of the world show sixty years of
service, and yet in all that time they have not had two years of real
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