The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: Pasquariel, and Basque the artist, armed with such implements as
they could hastily snatch up, and intent upon saving the man with
whom they sympathized in spite of all, and in whom now all their
hopes were centred.
Well ahead rolled Binet, moving faster than any had ever seen him
move, and swinging the long cane from which Pantaloon is inseparable.
"Infamous scoundrel!" he roared. "You have ruined me! But, name
of a name, you shall pay!"
Andre-Louis turned to face him. "You confuse cause with effect,"
said he. But he got no farther... Binet's cane, viciously driven,
descended and broke upon his shoulder. Had he not moved swiftly
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling: hill and had broken her back; his decisions were being reversed by
the upper Courts, more than an Assistant Commissioner of eight
years' standing has a right to expect; he knew liver and fever, and,
for weeks past, had felt out of sorts. Altogether, he was disgusted
and disheartened.
Simla Club dining-room is built, as all the world knows, in two
sections, with an arch-arrangement dividing them. Come in, turn to
your own left, take the table under the window, and you cannot see
any one who has come in, turning to the right, and taken a table on
the right side of the arch. Curiously enough, every word that you
say can be heard, not only by the other diner, but by the servants
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: forms had not the virgin delicacy of those of Etienne. Certainly the
poor physician had never dreamed of such a result; chance had brought
it forward and seemed to ordain it. But, under, the reign of Louis
XIII., to dare to lead a Duc d'Herouville to marry the daughter of a
bonesetter!
And yet, from this marriage alone was it likely that the lineage
imperiously demanded by the old duke would result. Nature had destined
these two rare beings for each other; God had brought them together by
a marvellous arrangement of events, while, at the same time, human
ideas and laws placed insuperable barriers between them. Though the
old man thought he saw in this the finger of God, and although he had
|