| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: the cause of what you call 'effects'? Your saint is a dark woman; but
this, my poor Porbus, belongs to a fair one. Your figures are pale,
colored phantoms, which you present to our eyes; and you call that
painting! art! Because you make something which looks more like a
woman than a house, you think you have touched the goal; proud of not
being obliged to write "currus venustus" or "pulcher homo" on the
frame of your picture, you think yourselves majestic artists like our
great forefathers. Ha, ha! you have not got there yet, my little men;
you will use up many a crayon and spoil many a canvas before you reach
that height. Undoubtedly a woman carries her head this way and her
petticoats that way; her eyes soften and droop with just that look of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling: stuck out his feet to act as brakes on the dark slope of the hot,
moist earth.
Then the grass by the mouth of the hole stopped waving, and
Darzee said, "It is all over with Rikki-tikki! We must sing his
death song. Valiant Rikki-tikki is dead! For Nagaina will surely
kill him underground."
So he sang a very mournful song that he made up on the spur of
the minute, and just as he got to the most touching part, the
grass quivered again, and Rikki-tikki, covered with dirt, dragged
himself out of the hole leg by leg, licking his whiskers. Darzee
stopped with a little shout. Rikki-tikki shook some of the dust
The Jungle Book |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: this theme, and all without exception have touched upon[3] the lofty
style of the philosopher,[4] which may be taken as a proof that the
language used by Socrates was really of that type. But none of these
writers has brought out clearly the fact that Socrates had come to
regard death as for himself preferable to life; and consequently there
is just a suspicion of foolhardiness in the arrogancy of his
address.[5] We have, however, from the lips of one of his intimate
acquaintances, Hermogenes,[6] the son of Hipponicus, an account of him
which shows the high demeanour in question to have been altogether in
keeping with the master's rational purpose.[7] Hermogenes says that,
seeing Socrates discoursing on every topic rather than that of his
The Apology |
