| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: Dinner passed as breakfast had done, and Mr. Fogg re-appeared in the
reading-room and sat down to the Pall Mall at twenty minutes before six.
Half an hour later several members of the Reform came in and drew up
to the fireplace, where a coal fire was steadily burning.
They were Mr. Fogg's usual partners at whist: Andrew Stuart, an engineer;
John Sullivan and Samuel Fallentin, bankers; Thomas Flanagan, a brewer;
and Gauthier Ralph, one of the Directors of the Bank of England--
all rich and highly respectable personages, even in a club which
comprises the princes of English trade and finance.
"Well, Ralph," said Thomas Flanagan, "what about that robbery?"
"Oh," replied Stuart, "the Bank will lose the money."
Around the World in 80 Days |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Herodias by Gustave Flaubert: near all the slaves belonging to the castle.
CHAPTER II
The ramparts were thronged with people when at last Vitellius entered
the castle gates, leaning on the arm of his interpreter. Behind them
came an imposing red litter, decorated with plumes and mirrors. The
proconsul wore a toga ornamented with the laticlave, a broad purple
band extending down the front of the garment, indicating his rank; and
his feet were encased in the kind of buskins worn by consuls. A guard
of lictors surrounded him. Against the wall they placed their twelve
fasces--a bundle of sticks with an axe in the centre. And the populace
trembled before the insignia of Roman majesty.
Herodias |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: and finance were more than ever possessed by the crazy mania for
seeking alliance with rank; and the generals of the Empire took full
advantage of this desire. Monsieur Guillaume, as a singular exception,
opposed this deplorable craving. His favorite axioms were that, to
secure happiness, a woman must marry a man of her own class; that
every one was punished sooner or later for having climbed too high;
that love could so little endure under the worries of a household,
that both husband and wife needed sound good qualities to be happy,
that it would not do for one to be far in advance of the other,
because, above everything, they must understand each other; if a man
spoke Greek and his wife Latin, they might come to die of hunger. He
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