| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: -hark! what a piteous groan!'--(Here Trims's face turned as pale as
ashes.)--'see the melancholy wretch who uttered it'--(Here the tears began
to trickle down)--'just brought forth to undergo the anguish of a mock
trial, and endure the utmost pains that a studied system of cruelty has
been able to invent.'--(D..n them all, quoth Trim, his colour returning
into his face as red as blood.)--'Behold this helpless victim delivered up
to his tormentors,--his body so wasted with sorrow and confinement.'--(Oh!
'tis my brother, cried poor Trim in a most passionate exclamation, dropping
the sermon upon the ground, and clapping his hands together--I fear 'tis
poor Tom. My father's and my uncle Toby's heart yearned with sympathy for
the poor fellow's distress; even Slop himself acknowledged pity for him.--
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: epaulets, his place at court, his sinecure, his two offices and their
advantages; in all, six salaries retained under fire of the law
against pluralists. Sometimes he threatened his minister as a mistress
threatens her lover; telling him he was about to marry a rich widow.
At such times the minister petted and cajoled des Lupeaulx. After one
of these reconciliations he received the formal promise of a place in
the Academy of Belles-lettres on the first vacancy. "It would pay," he
said, "the keep of a horse." His position, so far as it went, was a
good one, and Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx flourished in it like a
tree planted in good soil. He could satisfy his vices, his caprices,
his virtues and his defects.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: keep her secret, for no name appeared with her stories. Mr.
Dashwood had of course found it out very soon, but promised
to be dumb, and for a wonder kept his word.
She thought it would do her no harm, for she sincerely
meant to write nothing of which she would be ashamed, and
quieted all pricks of conscience by anticipations of the
happy minute when she should show her earnings and laugh over
her well-kept secret.
But Mr. Dashwood rejected any but thrilling tales, and as
thrills could not be produced except by harrowing up the souls
of the readers, history and romance, land and sea, science and
Little Women |
