| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: his face and a black cigar stuck in the midst thereof. Symes was his name, she
had learned, Ernst Symes.
"Whatcher turn?" he demanded, ere half her brief application had left her
lips.
"Sentimental soloist, soprano," she answered promptly, remembering Irwin's
advice to talk up.
"Whatcher name?" Mr. Symes asked, scarcely deigning to glance at her.
She hesitated. So rapidly had she been rushed into the adventure that she had
not considered the question of a name at all.
"Any name? Stage name?" he bellowed impatiently.
"Nan Bellayne," she invented on the spur of the moment. "B-e-l-l-a-y-n-e. Yes,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lay Morals by Robert Louis Stevenson: first time troubled.
Jonathan was waiting for them at table, with yellow, blood-
shot eyes and a peculiar dusky complexion. He hardly waited
till they found their seats, before, raising one hand, and
stooping with his mouth above his plate, he put up a prayer
for a blessing on the food and a spirit of gratitude in the
eaters, and thereupon, and without more civility, fell to.
But it was notable that he was no less speedily satisfied
than he had been greedy to begin. He pushed his plate away
and drummed upon the table.
'These are silly prayers,' said he, 'that they teach us. Eat
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Madame Firmiani by Honore de Balzac: understand these pages, which to some will seem redolent of musk, to
others as colorless and virtuous as those of Florian. In short, the
reader must have known the luxury of tears, must have felt the silent
pangs of a passing memory, the vision of a dear yet far-off Shade,--
memories which bring regret for all that earth has swallowed up, with
smiles for vanished joys.
And now, believe that the writer would not, for the wealth of England,
steal from poesy a single lie with which to embellish this narrative.
The following is a true history, on which you may safely spend the
treasures of your sensibility--if you have any.
In these days the French language has as many idioms and represents as
|
