| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: ladies' rooms half open. Somebody was standing in the recess of
the window, and the position of the door and the staircase made
it impossible that the painter should pass without seeing
Adelaide. He bowed coldly, with a glance of supreme indifference;
but judging of the girl's suffering by his own, he felt an inward
shudder as he reflected on the bitterness which that look and
that coldness must produce in a loving heart. To crown the most
delightful feast which ever brought joy to two pure souls, by
eight days of disdain, of the deepest and most utter contempt!--A
frightful conclusion. And perhaps the purse had been found,
perhaps Adelaide had looked for her friend every evening.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne: the island, when the engineer had been thrown into the sea. Moved by a
feeling of compassion the captain saved Cyrus Harding.
His first impulse was to fly from the vicinity of the five castaways; but
his harbor refuge was closed, for in consequence of an elevation of the
basalt, produced by the influence of volcanic action, he could no longer
pass through the entrance of the vault. Though there was sufficient depth
of water to allow a light craft to pass the bar, there was not enough for
the "Nautilus," whose draught of water was considerable.
Captain Nemo was compelled, therefore, to remain. He observed these men
thrown without resources upon a desert island, but had no wish to be
himself discovered by them. By degrees he became interested in their
The Mysterious Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: first time, how very wrong I had done to place the child in that
position, where she had been entrapped into a moment's weakness, and
now stood before me like a person shamed.
"Miss Drummond," I said, and stuck, and made the same beginning once
again, "I wish you could see into my heart," I cried. "You would read
there that my respect is undiminished. If that were possible, I should
say it was increased. This is but the result of the mistake we made;
and had to come; and the less said of it now the better. Of all of our
life here, I promise you it shall never pass my lips; I would like to
promise you too that I would never think of it, but it's a memory that
will be always dear to me. And as for a friend, you have one here that
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