| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Padre Ignacio by Owen Wister: sat with Gaston, to sit alone and look up and down, now at the hills
above, and now at the ocean below. Among his parishioners he had certain
troubles to soothe, certain wounds to heal; a home from which he was able
to drive jealousy; a girl whom he bade her lover set right. But all said,
"The Padre is unwell." And Felipe told them that the music seemed
nothing to him any more; he never asked for his Dixit Dominus nowadays.
Then for a short time he was really in bed, feverish with the two voices
that spoke to him without ceasing. "You have given your life," said one
voice. "And, therefore," said the other, "have earned the right to go
home and die." "You are winning better rewards in the service of God,"
said the first voice. "God can be better served in other places,"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: This retort put an end to the tactics of those who wanted to set
Gambara off on his high horse to amuse the new guest. Andrea was
already conscious of an unwillingness to expose so noble and pathetic
a mania as a spectacle for so much vulgar shrewdness. It was with no
base reservation that he kept up a desultory conversation, in the
course of which Signor Giardini's nose not infrequently interposed
between two remarks. Whenever Gambara uttered some elegant repartee or
some paradoxical aphorism, the cook put his head forward, to glance
with pity at the musician and with meaning at the Count, muttering in
his ear, "/E matto/!"
Then came a moment when the /chef/ interrupted the flow of his
Gambara |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: thought upon his face, then sprang to his feet and moved
hurriedly through the parlor to an open front window.
Peering out with caution he saw that the two women receding
from view were fashionably dressed and evidently came
from homes of means. He stared after them in a blank
way until they turned a corner.
He went into the hall then, put on his frock-coat and hat,
and stepped out into the garden. He was conscious
of having rather avoided it heretofore--not altogether
without reasons of his own, lying unexamined somewhere
in the recesses of his mind. Now he walked slowly about,
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
