| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: limbs like tatters on dried boughs; his hands trembled with a
continuous quivering, and as he walked he leaned on a staff of olive-
wood.
He reached the Negroes who were bearing the torches. His pale gums
were displayed in a sort of idiotic titter; his large, scared eyes
gazed upon the crowd of Barbarians around him.
But uttering a cry of terror he threw himself behind them, shielding
himself with their bodies. "There they are! There they are!" he
stammered out, pointing to the Suffet's guards, who were motionless in
their glittering armour. Their horses, dazzled by the light of the
torches which crackled in the darkness, were pawing the ground; the
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: each other in the darkness. A sort of frenzy must
have helped him up the steep Norton hill. It was
he, no doubt, who early the following morning had
been seen lying (in a swoon, I should say) on the
roadside grass by the Brenzett carrier, who actually
got down to have a nearer look, but drew back, in-
timidated by the perfect immobility, and by some-
thing queer in the aspect of that tramp, sleeping
so still under the showers. As the day advanced,
some children came dashing into school at Norton
in such a fright that the schoolmistress went out
Amy Foster |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: scheme, for he very willingly left me to read when I ought to have
been learning, while he worked at I knew not what. So, by a tacit
understanding between us, I made no complaints of being taught
nothing, and he said nothing of the books I borrowed.
Carried away by this ill-timed mania, I neglected my studies to
compose poems, which certainly can have shown no great promise, to
judge by a line of too many feet which became famous among my
companions--the beginning of an epic on the Incas:
"O Inca! O roi infortune et malheureux!"
In derision of such attempts, I was nicknamed the Poet, but mockery
did not cure me. I was always rhyming, in spite of good advice from
Louis Lambert |
