| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: utter, it was clear, came and went in her mind. She might even for
the minute, off there in the fine room, have imagined some element
dimly gathering. Simplified like the death-mask of a handsome
face, it perhaps produced for her just then an effect akin to the
stir of an expression in the "set" commemorative plaster. Yet
whatever her impression may have been she produced instead a vague
platitude. "Well, if it were only furnished and lived in - !"
She appeared to imply that in case of its being still furnished he
might have been a little less opposed to the idea of a return. But
she passed straight into the vestibule, as if to leave her words
behind her, and the next moment he had opened the house-door and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: a verdict in his favour, and Troubert must fear that. He may forgive
you for beginning the struggle, but if they were defeated he would be
implacable. I have said my say."
He snapped his snuff-box, put on his overshoes, and departed.
The next day after breakfast the baroness took the vicar aside and
said to him, not without visible embarrassment:--
"My dear Monsieur Birotteau, you will think what I am about to ask of
you very unjust and very inconsistent; but it is necessary, both for
you and for us, that your lawsuit with Mademoiselle Gamard be
withdrawn by resigning your claims, and also that you should leave my
house."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ballads by Robert Louis Stevenson: But whenever a guest came by eagerly questioned the guest;
And little by little, from one to another, the word went round:
"In all the borders of Paea the victual rots on the ground,
And swine are plenty as rats. And now, when they fare to the sea,
The men of the Namunu-ura glean from under the tree
And load the canoe to the gunwale with all that is toothsome to eat;
And all day long on the sea the jaws are crushing the meat,
The steersman eats at the helm, the rowers munch at the oar,
And at length, when their bellies are full, overboard with the store!"
Now was the word made true, and soon as the bait was bare,
All the pigs of Taiarapu raised their snouts in the air.
Ballads |
