| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Octopus by Frank Norris: will be offered to them for two dollars and fifty cents per acre.
It needs no seventh daughter of a seventh daughter to foresee
that these gentlemen will be disappointed."
"Rot!" vociferated Annixter to himself as he finished. He rolled
the paper into a wad and hurled it from him.
"Rot! rot! What does Genslinger know about it? I stand on my
agreement with the P. and S. W.--from two fifty to five dollars
an acre--there it is in black and white. The road IS obligated.
And my improvements! I made the land valuable by improving it,
irrigating it, draining it, and cultivating it. Talk to ME. I
know better."
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: paduasoy waistcoat, black trousers, and black ribbon bows on the
double soled shoes that creaked like an abbe's; he always held a
fourteen franc silk hat in his hand.
" 'I am old and I have no children,' he took occasion to confide to
the young lady some few days after Cerizet's visit to Maxime. 'I hold
my relations in horror. They are peasants born to work in the fields.
Just imagine it, I came up from the country with six francs in my
pocket, and made my fortune here. I am not proud. A pretty woman is my
equal. Now would it not be nicer to be Mme. Croizeau for some years to
come than to do a Count's pleasure for a twelvemonth? He will go off
and leave you some time or other; and when that day comes, you will
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: write to me in the morning that she would dine with me, not at
home, but at some restaurant in Paris or in the country. I would
call for her, and we would dine and go on to the theatre, often
having supper as well; and by the end of the evening I had spent
four or five louis, which came to two or three thousand francs a
month, which reduced my year to three months and a half, and made
it necessary for me either to go into debt or to leave
Marguerite. I would have consented to anything except the latter.
Forgive me if I give you all these details, but you will see that
they were the cause of what was to follow. What I tell you is a
true and simple story, and I leave to it all the naivete of its
Camille |
