| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas: "Who?"
"Some one, I dare say, who had a mind that no one should
leave the town."
"My good man," said the Grand Pensionary, putting out his
head from the window, and risking all for gaining all; "my
good man, it is for me, John de Witt, and for my brother
Cornelius, who I am taking away into exile."
"Oh, Mynheer de Witt! I am indeed very much grieved," said
the gatekeeper, rushing towards the carriage; "but, upon my
sacred word, the key has been taken from me."
"When?"
The Black Tulip |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: Parisian civilization which offered our hero so much easy entertainment
and propounded so many curious problems to his inquiring and practical mind.
Newman was fond of statistics; he liked to know how things were done;
it gratified him to learn what taxes were paid, what profits were gathered,
what commercial habits prevailed, how the battle of life was fought.
M. Nioche, as a reduced capitalist, was familiar with these considerations,
and he formulated his information, which he was proud to be able to impart,
in the neatest possible terms and with a pinch of snuff between finger
and thumb. As a Frenchman--quite apart from Newman's napoleons--M. Nioche
loved conversation, and even in his decay his urbanity had not grown rusty.
As a Frenchman, too, he could give a clear account of things, and--still as
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: He still held the same opinions. Only, they had been tempered.
To speak accurately, he had no longer any opinions, he had sympathies.
To what party did he belong? To the party of humanity. Out of
humanity he chose France; out of the Nation he chose the people;
out of the people he chose the woman. It was to that point above all,
that his pity was directed. Now he preferred an idea to a deed,
a poet to a hero, and he admired a book like Job more than an event
like Marengo. And then, when, after a day spent in meditation,
he returned in the evening through the boulevards, and caught
a glimpse through the branches of the trees of the fathomless
space beyond, the nameless gleams, the abyss, the shadow, the mystery,
Les Miserables |
