| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: immovable husband.
"Thank you," said Madame de Rastignac, as she accompanied her to the
door, "for having broken a lance with that cynic; Monsieur de
Rastignac's past life has left him with odious acquaintances."
As she resumed her place, Monsieur de Ronquerolles was saying,--
"Ha! saved her child's life indeed! The fact is that poor l'Estorade
is turning as yellow as a lemon."
"Ah, monsieur, but that is shocking," cried Madame de Rastignac. "A
woman whom no breath of slander has ever touched; who lives only for
her husband and children; whose eyes were full of tears at the mere
thought of the danger the child had run!--"
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: the dead and the detested; he was shown, as adminicular of
testimony, the traveller's uncouth and thick-soled boots; he
argued, and finding argument unavailing, consented to enter
the room and examine with his own eyes the sleeping Pict. One
glance was sufficient: the man was now a missionary, but he
had been before that an Edinburgh shopkeeper with whom my
grandfather had dealt. He came forth again with this report,
and the folk of the island, wholly relieved, dispersed to
their own houses. They were timid as sheep and ignorant as
limpets; that was all. But the Lord deliver us from the
tender mercies of a frightened flock!
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: and returned no more. They cooked the pieces on coals at the point of
the sword; they salted them with dust, and contended for the best
morsels. When nothing was left of the three corpses, their eyes ranged
over the whole plain to find others.
But were they not in possession of Carthaginians--twenty captives
taken in the last encounter, whom no one had noticed up to the
present? These disappeared; moreover, it was an act of vengeance.
Then, as they must live, as the taste for this food had become
developed, and as they were dying, they cut the throats of the water-
carriers, grooms, and all the serving-men belonging to the
Mercenaries. They killed some of them every day. Some ate much,
Salammbo |
