| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: "'But, supposing I am fond of her?' . . .
"Well, what could I say to that? . . . I was
nonplussed. After a short interval of silence,
however, I told him that if Bela's father were
to claim her he would have to give her up.
"'Not at all!'
"'But he will get to know that she is
here.'
"'How?'
"Again I was nonplussed.
"'Listen, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: same time that he made the discovery, the secret of his
banishment from the society of the good laid its finger
in his face and told him it must not be.
Man is too thoroughly an egoist not to be also an egotist;
if he love, the object shall know it. During a lifetime he
may conceal it through stress of expediency and honour,
but it shall bubble from his dying lips, though it disrupt
a neighbourhood. It is known, however, that most men
do not wait so long to disclose their passion. In the case
of Lorison, his particular ethics positively forbade him
to declare his sentiments, but he must needs dally with
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: the nineties. There were no more hounds or sporting dogs at
Yásnaya then, but till the end of her days she gave
shelter to a motley collection of mongrels, and tended and fed
them.
THE HOME OF THE TOLSTOYS
I CAN remember the house at Yásnaya Polyána in the
condition it was in the first years after my father's marriage.
It was one of the two-storied wings of the old mansion-house
of the Princes Volkónsky, which my father had sold for
pulling down when he was still a bachelor.
From what my father has told me, I know that the house in
|
