| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: steps instinctively offers his arm to yonder poverty stricken
widow in the rusty black bonnet, and with a check apron over her
patched gown. The sailor boy, who was her sole earthly stay, was
washed overboard in a late tempest. This couple from the palace
and the almshouse are but the types of thousands more who
represent the dark tragedy of life and seldom quarrel for the
upper parts. Grief is such a leveller, with its own dignity and
its own humility, that the noble and the peasant, the beggar and
the monarch, will waive their pretensions to external rank
without the officiousness of interference on our part. If
pride--the influence of the world's false distinctions--remain in
Mosses From An Old Manse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: girl; you would have thought her sublime, O generous souls! who care
but little what form true feeling takes, but admire it where it IS.
Here some light-minded person may exclaim against the truth of this
statement; they will say that there is not in all France a girl so
silly as to be ignorant of the art of angling for men; that
Mademoiselle Cormon is one of those monstrous exceptions which
commonsense should prevent a writer from using as a type; that the
most virtuous and also the silliest girl who desires to catch her fish
knows well how to bait the hook. But these criticisms fall before the
fact that the noble catholic, apostolic, and Roman religion is still
erect in Brittany and in the ancient duchy of Alencon. Faith and piety
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: de la princesse?
LA VOIX D'IOKANAAN. Ne te rejouis point, terre de Palestine, parce
que la verge de celui qui te frappait a ete brisee. Car de la race
du serpent il sortira un basilic, et ce qui en naitra devorera les
oiseaux.
SALOME. Quelle etrange voix! Je voudrais bien lui parler.
PREMIER SOLDAT. J'ai peur que ce soit impossible, princesse. Le
tetrarque ne veut pas qu'on lui parle. Il a meme defendu au grand
pretre de lui parler.
SALOME. Je veux lui parler.
PREMIER SOLDAT. C'est impossible, princesse.
|
