| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: you see this gentleman?' he continued when the man came in. 'Well, you
have allowed yourself to be taken in, poor old boy. This gentleman is
a creditor; you ought to have known him by his boots. No friend nor
foe of mine, nor those that are neither and want something of me, come
to see me on foot.--My dear M. Cerizet, do you understand? You will
not wipe your boots on my carpet again' (looking as he spoke at the
mud that whitened the enemy's soles). 'Convey my compliments and
sympathy to Claparon, poor buffer, for I shall file this business
under the letter Z.'
"All this with an easy good-humor fit to give a virtuous citizen the
colic.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: God for strength. She never prayed for respite.
Her realization of the situation and her lofty reso-
lution prevented that. The awful, ridiculous com-
bat was before her; there was no evasion; she prayed
only for the strength which leads to victory.
However, when the time came, it was all worse
than she had imagined. How could a woman gently
born and bred conceive of the horrible ignominy of
such a life? She was dragged hither and yon, to this
and that little town. She traveled through swelter-
ing heat on jolting trains; she slept in tents; she
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: bade you. Well, you've played it, and where's the fortune? We can
whistle for that as a sailor whistles for wind. And, by Heaven,
we'll need to whistle presently if the weather in the troupe
continues as it's set in. That scoundrel Scaramouche has been at
his ape's tricks with them. They've suddenly turned moral. They
won't sit at table with me any more." He was spluttering between
anger and sardonic mirth. "It was your friend Scaramouche set them
the example of that. He threatened my life actually. Threatened my
life! Called me... Oh, but what does that matter? What matters is
that the next thing to happen to us will be that the Binet Troupe
will discover it can manage without M. Binet and his daughter.
|
