| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: directions about the payment to the widow Gruget. When he returned, he
found his dinner served on a little table by his wife's bedside, and
Josephine ready to wait on him.
"If I were up how I should like to serve you myself," said Clemence,
when Josephine had left them. "Oh, yes, on my knees!" she added,
passing her white hands through her husband's hair. "Dear, noble
heart, you were very kind and gracious to me just now. You did me more
good by showing me such confidence than all the doctors on earth could
do me with their prescriptions. That feminine delicacy of yours--for
you do know how to love like a woman--well, it has shed a balm into my
heart which has almost cured me. There's truce between us, Jules;
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith: you are willing to be reconciled at last? Our horses will be refreshed
in a short time, and we shall soon be ready to set off.
TONY. And here's something to bear your charges by the way (giving the
casket); your sweetheart's jewels. Keep them: and hang those, I say,
that would rob you of one of them.
HASTINGS. But how have you procured them from your mother?
TONY. Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs. I procured them
by the rule of thumb. If I had not a key to every drawer in mother's
bureau, how could I go to the alehouse so often as I do? An honest man
may rob himself of his own at any time.
HASTINGS. Thousands do it every day. But to be plain with you; Miss
She Stoops to Conquer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson: their master's neck. All understood a word or two of English, but Neil
was the only one who judged he had enough of it for general converse,
in which (when once he got embarked) his company was often tempted to
the contrary opinion. They were tractable, simple creatures; showed
much more courtesy than might have been expected from their raggedness
and their uncouth appearance, and fell spontaneously to be like three
servants for Andie and myself.
Dwelling in that isolated place, in the old falling ruins of a prison,
and among endless strange sounds of the sea and the sea-birds, I
thought I perceived in them early the effects of superstitious fear.
When there was nothing doing they would either lie and sleep, for which
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