| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: combed, ill-made Byron has heron legs and stiffened knee-joints, an
exaggerated stoop, hands with knotty muscles, firm as a crab's claws,
and long, thin, wiry fingers. Raoul's eyes are Napoleonic, blue eyes,
which pierce to the soul; his nose is crooked and very shrewd; his
mouth charming, embellished with the whitest teeth that any woman
could desire. There is fire and movement in the head, and genius on
that brow. Raoul belongs to the small number of men who strike your
mind as you pass them, and who, in a salon, make a luminous spot to
which all eyes are attracted.
He makes himself remarked also by his "neglige," if we may borrow from
Moliere the word which Eliante uses to express the want of personal
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Enemies of Books by William Blades: 1. The "Anobium." Of this beetle there are varieties, viz.:
"A. pertinax," "A. eruditus," and "A. paniceum." In the larval
state they are grubs, just like those found, in nuts; in this stage
they are too much alike to be distinguished from one another.
They feed on old dry wood, and often infest bookcases and shelves.
They eat the wooden boards of old books, and so pass into the paper
where they make long holes quite round, except when they work
in a slanting direction, when the holes appear to be oblong.
They will thus pierce through several volumes in succession,
Peignot, the well-known bibliographer, having found 27 volumes
so pierced in a straight line by one worm, a miracle of gluttony,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: 'It would not be a separation: we will write every day: my spirit
shall be always with you, and sometimes you shall see me with your
bodily eye. I will not be such a hypocrite as to pretend that I
desire to wait so long myself, but as my marriage is to please
myself, alone, I ought to consult my friends about the time of it.'
'Your friends will disapprove.'
'They will not greatly disapprove, dear Gilbert,' said she,
earnestly kissing my hand; 'they cannot, when they know you, or, if
they could, they would not be true friends - I should not care for
their estrangement. Now are you satisfied?' She looked up in my
face with a smile of ineffable tenderness.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
