| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac: in the dark eyes, with the hollow, shadowy circles about them;
sometimes, when she was off her guard, their expression told of secret
anguish. The oval of her face was somewhat long; but happiness and
health had perhaps filled and perfected the outlines. A forced smile,
full of quiet sadness, hovered continually on her pale lips; but when
the children, who were always with her, looked up at their mother, or
asked one of the incessant idle questions which convey so much to a
mother's ears, then the smile brightened, and expressed the joys of a
mother's love. Her gait was slow and dignified. Her dress never
varied; evidently she had made up her mind to think no more of her
toilette, and to forget a world by which she meant no doubt to be
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber: "Suppose we have a bite of something to eat first," suggested
Heiny.
Miss Fink glanced round the great, deserted kitchen. As she
gazed a little expression of disgust wrinkled her pretty nose--the
nose that perforce had sniffed the scent of so many rare and
exquisite dishes.
"Sure," she assented, joyously, "but not here. Let's go
around the corner to Joey's. I could get real chummy with a cup of
good hot coffee and a ham on rye."
He helped her on with her coat, and if his hands rested a
moment on her shoulders who was there to see it? A few sleepy,
Buttered Side Down |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Myths and Myth-Makers by John Fiske: [149] Tylor, op. cit. p. 336. November, 1870
VI. JUVENTUS MUNDI.[150]
[150] Juventus Mundi. The Gods and Men of the Heroic Age. By
the Rt. Hon. William Ewart Gladstone. Boston: Little, Brown,
& Co. 1869.
TWELVE years ago, when, in concluding his "Studies on Homer
and the Homeric Age," Mr. Gladstone applied to himself the
warning addressed by Agamemnon to the priest of Apollo,
"Let not Nemesis catch me by the swift ships."
he would seem to have intended it as a last farewell to
classical studies. Yet, whatever his intentions may have been,
Myths and Myth-Makers |
