| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: the language (let us hope), and yet it is the only one which conveys
an idea of the spirit of Bohemia.
"So we often used to joke about Claudine and the Count--'/Toujours
Claudine?/' sung to the air of /Toujours Gessle/.--'What are you
making of Claudine?'--'How is Claudine?'
" 'I wish you all such a mistress, for all the harm I wish you,' La
Palferine began one day. 'No greyhound, no basset-dog, no poodle can
match her in gentleness, submissiveness, and complete tenderness.
There are times when I reproach myself, when I take myself to task for
my hard heart. Claudine obeys with saintly sweetness. She comes to me,
I tell her to go, she goes, she does not even cry till she is out in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: know how to harness my horse now; this road is very bad at night;
if you wish to return and sleep at Tinques, we could be in Arras
early to-morrow morning."
He replied, "Have you a bit of rope and a knife?"
"Yes, sir."
He cut a branch from a tree and made a whiffle-tree of it.
This caused another loss of twenty minutes; but they set out again
at a gallop.
The plain was gloomy; low-hanging, black, crisp fogs crept over the hills
and wrenched themselves away like smoke: there were whitish gleams
in the clouds; a strong breeze which blew in from the sea produced
Les Miserables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his
vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre about him was idle; and to
have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion, and clattering
about the room, you would have thought St. Vitus himself, that
blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person.
He was the admiration of all the negroes; who, having gathered,
of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood
forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and
window; gazing with delight at the scene; rolling their white
eye-balls, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear.
How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
