| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Purse by Honore de Balzac: Adelaide. He bowed coldly, with a glance of supreme indifference;
but judging of the girl's suffering by his own, he felt an inward
shudder as he reflected on the bitterness which that look and
that coldness must produce in a loving heart. To crown the most
delightful feast which ever brought joy to two pure souls, by
eight days of disdain, of the deepest and most utter contempt!--A
frightful conclusion. And perhaps the purse had been found,
perhaps Adelaide had looked for her friend every evening.
This simple and natural idea filled the lover with fresh remorse;
he asked himself whether the proofs of attachment given him by
the young girl, the delightful talks, full of the love that had
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: entered the drawing-room, where Ellie was saying plaintively to
Fred Gillow: "I can never hear that thing sung without wanting
to cry like a baby."
IX.
NELSON VANDERLYN, still in his travelling clothes, paused on the
threshold of his own dining-room and surveyed the scene with
pardonable satisfaction.
He was a short round man, with a grizzled head, small facetious
eyes and a large and credulous smile.
At the luncheon table sat his wife, between Charlie Strefford
and Nick Lansing. Next to Strefford, perched on her high chair,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: he got his precarious footing in the community. It
began by his buying for Amy Foster a green satin
ribbon in Darnford. This was what you did in his
country. You bought a ribbon at a Jew's stall on
a fair-day. I don't suppose the girl knew what to
do with it, but he seemed to think that his honoura-
ble intentions could not be mistaken.
"It was only when he declared his purpose to
get married that I fully understood how, for a hun-
dred futile and inappreciable reasons, how--shall
I say odious?--he was to all the countryside.
Amy Foster |
