| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: taste of the eighteenth century, had been painted gray. There were
monochrome paintings on the frieze panels, and the walls were adorned
with crimson damask with a meagre border. The old-fashioned furniture
shrank piteously from sight under covers of a red-and-white check
pattern. On the sofa, covered with thin mattressed cushions, sat Mme.
de Bargeton; the poet beheld her by the light of two wax candles on a
sconce with a screen fitted to it, that stood before her on a round
table with a green cloth.
The queen did not attempt to rise, but she twisted very gracefully on
her seat, smiling on the poet, who was not a little fluttered by the
serpentine quiverings; her manner was distinguished, he thought. For
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: assassins hurried to the station to catch the last train.
Arriving there a little before their time, they went into a
neighbouring cafe. Fenayrou had three bocks, Lucien one, and
Madame another glass of chartreuse. So home to Paris. Lucien
reached his house about two in the morning. "Well," asked his
wife, "did you have a good day?" "Splendid," was the reply.
Eleven days passed. Fenayrou paid a visit to the villa to clean
it and put it in order. Otherwise he went about his business as
usual, attending race meetings, indulging in a picnic and a visit
to the Salon. On May 27 a man named Bailly, who, by a strange
coincidence, was known by the nickname of "the Chemist," walking
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: fringed out with an electrical nimbus that flamed around for miles
and miles and lit up all space like broad day. The comet was
burning blue in the distance, like a sickly torch, when I first
sighted him, but he begun to grow bigger and bigger as I crept up
on him. I slipped up on him so fast that when I had gone about
150,000,000 miles I was close enough to be swallowed up in the
phosphorescent glory of his wake, and I couldn't see anything for
the glare. Thinks I, it won't do to run into him, so I shunted to
one side and tore along. By and by I closed up abreast of his
tail. Do you know what it was like? It was like a gnat closing up
on the continent of America. I forged along. By and by I had
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