| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lily of the Valley by Honore de Balzac: farming system well under way, the estate of Clochegourde, divided
into four great farms, two of which still needed new houses, was
capable of bringing in forty thousand francs a year, ten thousand for
each farm, not counting the yield of the vineyards, and the two
hundred acres of woodland which adjoined them, nor the profits of the
model home-farm. The roads to the great farms all opened on an avenue
which followed a straight line from Clochegourde to the main road
leading to Chinon. The distance from the entrance of this avenue to
Tours was only fifteen miles; tenants would never be wanting,
especially now that everybody was talking of the count's improvements
and the excellent condition of his land.
The Lily of the Valley |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Copy-Cat & Other Stories by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman: hid behind the chicken-coop and then run I couldn't
have got here. But I can't see as you've got any
corn, Johnny Trumbull."
"Couldn't. Every single ear was cooked for din-
ner."
"I couldn't bring any cookies, either," said Lee
Westminster; "there weren't any cookies in the jar."
"And I couldn't bring the potatoes, because the
outside cellar door was locked," said Arnold Car-
ruth. "I had to go down the back stairs and out
the south door, and the inside cellar door opens out
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: cold and famine, and filth, and vermin, as fast as can be
reasonably expected. And as to the young labourers, they are now
in almost as hopeful a condition. They cannot get work, and
consequently pine away from want of nourishment, to a degree,
that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labour,
they have not strength to perform it, and thus the country and
themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.
I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my
subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made
are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance.
For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen
A Modest Proposal |
