| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: he might have prolonged each day the deep crepuscular spell. Later
- rarely much before midnight, but then for a considerable vigil -
he watched with his glimmering light; moving slowly, holding it
high, playing it far, rejoicing above all, as much as he might, in
open vistas, reaches of communication between rooms and by
passages; the long straight chance or show, as he would have called
it, for the revelation he pretended to invite. It was a practice
he found he could perfectly "work" without exciting remark; no one
was in the least the wiser for it; even Alice Staverton, who was
moreover a well of discretion, didn't quite fully imagine.
He let himself in and let himself out with the assurance of calm
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: dine. Bixiou, incapable of bearing this state of things during a whole
dinner, determined to create a reaction. The appearance of this
Swedish magnate, evidently on intimate terms with the Saint-Esteve,
puzzled him. He noticed a certain insufficiency in Vautrin, and
thought to himself that if he were really a great nobleman, he would
be more equal to the occasion, and give a tone to the feast. He
determined, therefore, to test him, and thus provide amusement, at any
rate, for himself. So, at the end of the second course, he suddenly
said from his end of the table,--
"Monsieur le comte, you are too young, of course, to have known
Gustavus III., whom Scribe and Auber have set in opera, while the rest
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: fruit of the crime."
"This discussion is, in itself, a verdict. There are some things on
which a man does not deliberate," said my former guardian, who thought
to enlighten the assembly with a flash of inebriety.
"Yes!" said the secretary of an embassy.
"Yes!" said the priest.
But the two men did not mean the same thing.
A "doctrinaire," who had missed his election to the Chamber by one
hundred and fifty votes out of one hundred and fifty-five, here rose.
"Messieurs," he said, "this phenomenal incident of intellectual nature
is one of those which stand out vividly from the normal condition to
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