| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Pupil by Henry James: cold lemon-coloured sunset so clear, the stream of carriages and
pedestrians so amusing and the fascination of Paris so great, that
they stayed out later than usual and became aware that they should
have to hurry home to arrive in time for dinner. They hurried
accordingly, arm-in-arm, good-humoured and hungry, agreeing that
there was nothing like Paris after all and that after everything
too that had come and gone they were not yet sated with innocent
pleasures. When they reached the hotel they found that, though
scandalously late, they were in time for all the dinner they were
likely to sit down to. Confusion reigned in the apartments of the
Moreens - very shabby ones this time, but the best in the house -
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Pool in the Desert by Sara Jeanette Duncan: letters of admonition to the Amir all day long, and in the evening,
with the assistance of yellow wigs and make-up sticks from the
Calcutta hair-dresser, imagining that they produce things, poor
dears, only a LITTLE less well done than is done at the Lyceum?
Nothing is beyond them. I assure you they are contemplating at the
moment 'The Second Mrs. Tanqueray'. The effect of remoteness from
the world, I suppose, and the enormous mutual appreciation of people
who have watched each other climb. For to arrive officially at
Simla they have had to climb in more ways than one. . .It is all so
hilarious, so high-spirited, so young and yet, my word! what a cult
of official dignity underlying! I saw a staff-officer in full
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters from England by Elizabeth Davis Bancroft: frequently, and know them better than in the full season, and we
have some of the best specimens of English society, too, here just
now, as the Whig ministry brings a good deal of the ability of the
aristocracy to its aid. The subjects of conversation among women
are more general than with us, and [they] are much more cultivated
than our women as a body, not our blues. They never sew, or attend,
as we do, to domestic affairs, and so live for social life and
understand it better.
LONDON, December 2, 1846
My dear Mrs. Polk: you told me when I parted from you at Washington
that you would like to get from me occasionally some accounts of my
|
