| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: of a member of the family; and beyond the village in the
limitless blackness of a winter's night there lay the great
unfenced fields--not a flat and severe plain, but a kindly bread-
giving land of low rounded ridges, all white now, with the black
patches of timber nestling in the hollows. The road by which I
had come ran through the village with a turn just outside the
gates closing the short drive. Somebody was abroad on the deep
snow track; a quick tinkle of bells stole gradually into the
stillness of the room like a tuneful whisper.
My unpacking had been watched over by the servant who had come to
help me, and, for the most part, had been standing attentive but
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Distinguished Provincial at Paris by Honore de Balzac: there are a hundred young men at this moment who would like to have an
entrance to Mlle. des Touches' house; people are coupling her name
with yours already in society, my dear boy," said des Lupeaulx,
clapping Lucien on the shoulder. "Ah! you are in high favor. Mme.
d'Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Mme. de Montcornet are wild about you.
You are going to Mme. Firmiani's party to-night, are you not, and to
the Duchesse de Grandlieu's rout to-morrow?"
"Yes," said Lucien.
"Allow me to introduce a young banker to you, a M. du Tillet; you
ought to be acquainted, he has contrived to make a great fortune in a
short time."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: "Thou art about to suffer thyself to be vanquished! Are the others
perchance more strong? Show thyself! aid us! that the peoples may not
say: 'Where are now their gods?'"
The colleges of the pontiffs were agitated by unceasing anxiety. Those
of Rabbetna were especially afraid--the restoration of the zaimph
having been of no avail. They kept themselves shut up in the third
enclosure which was as impregnable as a fortress. Only one among them,
the high priest Schahabarim, ventured to go out.
He used to visit Salammbo. But he would either remain perfectly
silent, gazing at her with fixed eyeballs, or else would be lavish of
words, and the reproaches that he uttered were harder than ever.
Salammbo |
