| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Case of the Registered Letter by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: My home called to me and I came back to it.
I kissed the earth of my own country, and I wept at my mother's
grave. I was happy again under the skies which had domed above my
childhood. For I am an honest man, beloved, and I always have been.
One day I sat at table beside the man - the Judge who condemned me,
here in G- in those terrible days. He naturally did not know me
again. I, myself, brought the conversation around to a professional
subject. I asked him if it were not possible that circumstantial
evidence could lie; if the entire past, the reputation of the
accused would not be a factor in his favour. The Judge denied it.
It was his opinion, beyond a doubt, that circumstantial evidence was
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: towns. In front of this house is a garden down to the river, where the
box shrubs, formerly clipped close to edge the walks, now straggle at
their own will. A few willows, rooted in the stream, have grown up
quickly like an enclosing fence, and half hide the house. The wild
plants we call weeds have clothed the bank with their beautiful
luxuriance. The fruit-trees, neglected for these ten years past, no
longer bear a crop, and their suckers have formed a thicket. The
espaliers are like a copse. The paths, once graveled, are overgrown
with purslane; but, to be accurate there is no trace of a path.
"Looking down from the hilltop, to which cling the ruins of the old
castle of the Dukes of Vendome, the only spot whence the eye can see
La Grande Breteche |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: Jacob, standing between their table and that of the priests,
maintained a silence at once lofty and respectful.
Several voices exclaimed: "Prove his power to us!"
Jacob leaned over the priests' table, and said slowly, in a half-
suppressed tone, as if awe-struck by his own words:
"Know ye not, then, that He is the Messiah?"
The priests stared at one another, and Vitellius demanded the meaning
of the word. His interpreter paused a moment before translating it.
Then he said that Messiah was the name to be given to one who was to
come, bringing the enjoyment of all blessings, and giving them
domination over all the peoples of the earth. Certain persons believed
Herodias |
