| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: brilliancy. As to the private apartment of Mademoiselle Gamard, no one
had ever been permitted to look into it. Conjecture alone suggested
that it was full of odds and ends, worn-out furniture, and bits of
stuff and pieces dear to the hearts of all old maids.
Such was the woman destined to exert a vast influence on the last
years of the Abbe Birotteau.
For want of exercising in nature's own way the activity bestowed upon
women, and yet impelled to spend it in some way or other, Mademoiselle
Gamard had acquired the habit of using it in petty intrigues,
provincial cabals, and those self-seeking schemes which occupy, sooner
or later, the lives of all old maids. Birotteau, unhappily, had
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: infinity of contempt, to a droll bitterness of wonder, to a
disenchanted conviction of safety. He had a glimpse of the
irresistible force, and he saw also the barrenness of his
convictions--of her convictions. It seemed to him that he could never
make a mistake as long as he lived. It was morally impossible to go
wrong. He was not elated by that certitude; he was dimly uneasy about
its price; there was a chill as of death in this triumph of sound
principles, in this victory snatched under the very shadow of
disaster.
The last trace of his previous state of mind vanished, as the
instantaneous and elusive trail of a bursting meteor vanishes on the
Tales of Unrest |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Where There's A Will by Mary Roberts Rinehart: They were planning a mutiny, as you may say, and I guess no
sailors on a pirate ship were more afraid of the captain's fist
than they were of Mr. Pierce's disapproval. He'd been smart
enough to see that most of them, having bullied other people all
their lives, liked the novelty of being bullied themselves. And
now they were getting a new thrill by having a revolt. They were
terribly worked up.
Miss Patty stayed after the others had gone, sitting in front of
the empty fireplace in the same chair Mr. Pierce
usually took, and keeping her back to me. When I'd finished
folding the steamer rugs and putting them away, I went around and
|
