| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: younger man assented, "Why not come to my studio instead? You'll
see one bore instead of twenty."
The apartment which Flamel described as his studio showed, as its
one claim to the designation, a perennially empty easel; the rest
of its space being filled with the evidences of a comprehensive
dilettanteism. Against this background, which seemed the visible
expression of its owner's intellectual tolerance, rows of fine
books detached themselves with a prominence, showing them to be
Flamel's chief care.
Glennard glanced with the eye of untrained curiosity at the lines
of warm-toned morocco, while his host busied himself with the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Marie by H. Rider Haggard: Whilst I was noting these things Marie appeared at the end of the
veranda, having come round the burnt part of the house, followed by
Hernan Pereira. Catching sight of me, she ran to the side of my couch
with outstretched arms as though she intended to embrace me. Then
seeming to remember, stopped suddenly at my side, coloured to her hair,
and said in an embarrassed voice:
"Oh, Heer Allan"--she had never called me Heer in her life before--"I am
so glad to find you out! How have you been getting on?"
"Pretty well, I thank you," I answered, biting my lips, "as you would
have learnt, Marie, had you come to see me."
Next moment I was sorry for the words, for I saw her eyes fill with
Marie |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Recruit by Honore de Balzac: daily. Several circumstances which would never have attracted
attention in a large town, though they greatly preoccupied the little
one, gave to this habitual rendezvous an unusual interest. For the two
preceding evenings Madame de Dey had closed her doors to the little
company, on the ground that she was ill. Such an event would, in
ordinary times, have produced as much effect as the closing of the
theatres in Paris; life under those circumstances seems merely
incomplete. But in 1793, Madame de Dey's action was likely to have
fatal results. The slightest departure from a usual custom became,
almost invariably for the nobles, a matter of life or death. To fully
understand the eager curiosity and searching inquiry which animated on
|
