| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Ball at Sceaux by Honore de Balzac: Countess and Emilie contrived to create. This etiquette soon found
even ampler opportunity for the display of domestic tyranny; for
Lieutenant-General de Fontaine married Mademoiselle Mongenod, the
daughter of a rich banker; the President very sensibly found a wife in
a young lady whose father, twice or thrice a millionaire, had traded
in salt; and the third brother, faithful to his plebeian doctrines,
married Mademoiselle Grossetete, the only daughter of the Receiver-
General at Bourges. The three sisters-in-law and the two brothers-in-
law found the high sphere of political bigwigs, and the drawing-rooms
of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, so full of charm and of personal
advantages, that they united in forming a little court round the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: communication from one so little known to you; but on the occasion
I had the good fortune to rencounter you at Durrisdeer, I remarked
you for a young man of a solid gravity of character: a
qualification which I profess I admire and revere next to natural
genius or the bold chivalrous spirit of the soldier. I was,
besides, interested in the noble family which you have the honour
to serve, or (to speak more by the book) to be the humble and
respected friend of; and a conversation I had the pleasure to have
with you very early in the morning has remained much upon my mind.
Being the other day in Paris, on a visit from this famous city,
where I am in garrison, I took occasion to inquire your name (which
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: separate we enclosed also those of Antilochus, who had been
closer to you than any other of your comrades now that Patroclus
was no more.
"Over these the host of the Argives built a noble tomb, on a
point jutting out over the open Hellespont, that it might be
seen from far out upon the sea by those now living and by them
that shall be born hereafter. Your mother begged prizes from the
gods, and offered them to be contended for by the noblest of the
Achaeans. You must have been present at the funeral of many a
hero, when the young men gird themselves and make ready to
contend for prizes on the death of some great chieftain, but you
The Odyssey |
