| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: the necessity. How Falk had managed to turn the
girl's head was more difficult to understand. I sup-
posed Hermann would know. And then hadn't
there been Miss Vanlo? It could not be his silvery
tongue, or the subtle seduction of his manner; he
had no more of what is called "manner" than an
animal--which, however, on the other hand, is
never, and can never be called vulgar. Therefore
it must have been his bodily appearance, exhibiting
a virility of nature as exaggerated as his beard, and
resembling a sort of constant ruthlessness. It was
Falk |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: oracles which fatality sometimes allows. The /City of Paris/ has her
great mast, all of bronze, carved with victories, and for watchman--
Napoleon. The barque may roll and pitch, but she cleaves the world,
illuminates it through the hundred mouths of her tribunes, ploughs the
seas of science, rides with full sail, cries from the height of her
tops, with the voice of her scientists and artists: "Onward, advance!
Follow me!" She carries a huge crew, which delights in adorning her
with fresh streamers. Boys and urchins laughing in the rigging;
ballast of heavy /bourgeoisie/; working-men and sailor-men touched
with tar; in her cabins the lucky passengers; elegant midshipmen smoke
their cigars leaning over the bulwarks; then, on the deck, her
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: small child of nature at the Geneva school, a little person quite
made over (as foreign women WERE, compared with American) by
marriage. Her situation too had evidently cleared itself up; there
would have been--all that was possible--a judicial separation. She
had settled in Paris, brought up her daughter, steered her boat. It
was no very pleasant boat--especially there--to be in; but Marie de
Vionnet would have headed straight. She would have friends,
certainly--and very good ones. There she was at all events--and it
was very interesting. Her knowing Mr. Chad didn't in the least
prove she hadn't friends; what it proved was what good ones HE had.
"I saw that," said Miss Gostrey, "that night at the Francais; it
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