| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: looked even then; her masses of hair gave her that look. She seemed to
droop under the heavy braids of it, and yet she was smiling. Andreas
caught his breath sharply. She was his wife--that girl. Posh! it had only
been taken four years ago. He held it close to him, bent forward and
kissed it. Then rubbed the glass with the back of his hand. At that
moment, fainter than he had heard in the passage, more terrifying, Andreas
heard again that wailing cry. The wind caught it up in mocking echo, blew
it over the house-tops, down the street, far away from him. He flung out
his arms, "I'm so damnably helpless," he said, and then, to the picture,
"Perhaps it's not as bad as it sounds; perhaps it is just my
sensitiveness." In the half light of the drawing-room the smile seemed to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: out in minute pearls of blood the toil of uncounted
ploughmen. From the edge of a copse a waggon
with two horses was rolling gently along the ridge.
Raised above our heads upon the sky-line, it loomed
up against the red sun, triumphantly big, enor-
mous, like a chariot of giants drawn by two slow-
stepping steeds of legendary proportions. And
the clumsy figure of the man plodding at the head
of the leading horse projected itself on the back-
ground of the Infinite with a heroic uncouthness.
The end of his carter's whip quivered high up in
Amy Foster |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: "They are like the playgoers who book for the second performance,
feeling sure that the piece will not fail," replied the journalist.
"And what is the cause of all these woes?" asked Bianchon.
"Paris is the monster that brings us grief," replied the Superior
Woman. "The evil is seven leagues round, and devastates the whole
land. Provincial life is not self-existent. It is only when a nation
is divided into fifty minor states that each can have a physiognomy of
its own, and then a woman reflects the glory of the sphere where she
reigns. This social phenomenon, I am told, may be seen in Italy,
Switzerland, and Germany; but in France, as in every country where
there is but one capital, a dead level of manners must necessarily
The Muse of the Department |
