| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: of paying farewell visits (in view of recent events, that might have
given rise to some awkwardness), but for the purpose of paying an
unobtrusive call at the shop where he had obtained the cloth for his
latest suit. There he now purchased four more arshins of the same
smoked-grey-shot-with-flame-colour material as he had had before, with
the intention of having it made up by the tailor who had fashioned the
previous costume; and by promising double remuneration he induced the
tailor in question so to hasten the cutting out of the garments that,
through sitting up all night over the work, the man might have the
whole ready by break of day. True, the goods were delivered a trifle
after the appointed hour, yet the following morning saw the coat and
Dead Souls |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Iliad by Homer: their supper. Many ships had come with wine from Lemnos, sent by
Euneus the son of Jason, born to him by Hypsipyle. The son of
Jason freighted them with ten thousand measures of wine, which he
sent specially to the sons of Atreus, Agamemnon and Menelaus.
From this supply the Achaeans bought their wine, some with
bronze, some with iron, some with hides, some with whole heifers,
and some again with captives. They spread a goodly banquet and
feasted the whole night through, as also did the Trojans and
their allies in the city. But all the time Jove boded them ill
and roared with his portentous thunder. Pale fear got hold upon
them, and they spilled the wine from their cups on to the ground,
The Iliad |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Prince of Bohemia by Honore de Balzac: letters. The woman, as you know, was Tullia, one of the /premiers
sujets/ of the Academie Royale de Musique. Tullia is merely a
pseudonym like du Bruel's name of de Cursy.
"For the ten years between 1817 and 1827 Tullia was in her glory on
the heights of the stage of the Opera. With more beauty than
education, a mediocre dancer with rather more sense than most of her
class, she took no part in the virtuous reforms which ruined the corps
de ballet; she continued the Guimard dynasty. She owed her ascendency,
moreover, to various well-known protectors, to the Duc de Rhetore (the
Due de Chaulieu's eldest son), to the influence of a famous
Superintendent of Fine Arts, and sundry diplomatists and rich
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