| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lemorne Versus Huell by Elizabeth Drew Stoddard: Aunt Eliza proposed that we should go to Turo Street on a shopping
excursion; she wanted a cap, and various articles besides. As we
went into a large shop I saw Mr. Uxbridge at a counter buying
gloves; her quick eye caught sight of him, and she edged away,
saying she would look at some goods on the other side; I might wait
where I was. As he turned to go out he saw me and stopped.
"I have been in New York since I saw you," he said. "Mr. Lemorne
sent for me."
"There is my aunt," I said.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I shall not go away soon again," he remarked. "I missed Newport
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Chronicles of the Canongate by Walter Scott: recur to it, if I thought it would make my description a bit more
intelligible. I think I have heard her say these favourite caps
had been her mother's, and had come in fashion with a peculiar
kind of wig used by the gentlemen about the time of the battle of
Ramillies. The rest of her dress was always rather costly and
distinguished, especially in the evening. A silk or satin gown
of some colour becoming her age, and of a form which, though
complying to a certain degree with the present fashion, had
always a reference to some more distant period, was garnished
with triple ruffles. Her shoes had diamond buckles, and were
raised a little at heel, an advantage which, possessed in her
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: want and scarcity everywhere: yet folk go in for balls! How absurd,
too, were those overdressed women! One of them must have had a
thousand roubles on her back, and all acquired at the expense of the
overtaxed peasant, or, worse still, at that of the conscience of her
neighbour. Yes, we all know why bribes are accepted, and why men
become crooked in soul. It is all done to provide wives--yes, may the
pit swallow them up!--with fal-lals. And for what purpose? That some
woman may not have to reproach her husband with the fact that, say,
the Postmaster's wife is wearing a better dress than she is--a dress
which has cost a thousand roubles! 'Balls and gaiety, balls and
gaiety' is the constant cry. Yet what folly balls are! They do not
Dead Souls |
