| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart: corner, and I do not think he breathed.
Then, with the relief of space between us, I screamed, ear-
splittingly, madly, and they heard me outside.
"In the chimney!" I shrieked. "Behind the mantel! The mantel!"
With an oath the figure hurled itself across the room at me, and
I screamed again. In his blind fury he had missed me; I heard
him strike the wall. That one time I eluded him; I was across
the room, and I had got the chair. He stood for a second,
listening, then--he made another rush, and I struck out with my
weapon. I think it stunned him, for I had a second's respite
when I could hear him breathing, and some one shouted outside:
The Circular Staircase |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: Montcornet, one of Napoleon's most famous officers, had, on the
strength of a marriage portion of twenty thousand francs, found a
husband in an inferior official at the War Office. Through the
interest of the famous lieutenant-general--made marshal of France six
months before his death--this quill-driver had risen to unhoped-for
dignity as head-clerk of his office; but just as he was to be promoted
to be deputy-chief, the marshal's death had cut off Marneffe's
ambitions and his wife's at the root. The very small salary enjoyed by
Sieur Marneffe had compelled the couple to economize in the matter of
rent; for in his hands Mademoiselle Valerie Fortin's fortune had
already melted away--partly in paying his debts, and partly in the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: boisterous games, there was less noise in the hollow pathways and
gardens and terraced walks of La Grenadiere. They adapted their lives
to their mother's melancholy. Day by day her face was growing pale and
wan, there were hollows now in her temples, the lines in her forehead
grew deeper night after night.
August came. The little family had been five months at La Grenadiere,
and their whole life was changed. The old servant grew anxious and
gloomy as she watched the almost imperceptible symptoms of slow
decline in the mistress, who seemed to be kept in life by an
impassioned soul and intense love of her children. Old Annette seemed
to see that death was very near. That mistress, beautiful still, was
|
