| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Wyoming by William MacLeod Raine: Susceptible as this man was to the influence of music, he could
not fail to be arrested by so perfect an interpretation of his
mood. He stood rooted, was carried back again in imagination to a
great artiste's rendering of that story of fierce passion and
aching desire so brilliantly enacted under the white sunbeat of a
country of cloudless skies. Imperceptibly she drifted into other
parts of the opera. Was it the wild, gypsy seductiveness of
_Carmen_ that he felt, or, rather, this American girl's
allurement? From "Love will like a birdling fly" she slipped into
the exquisitely graceful snatches of song with which _Carmen_
answers the officer's questions. Their rare buoyancy marched with
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: his figure, but spontaneously, and not even merely in return for his
own love; a young man, I say, who has found love in the abstract, to
quote Royer-Collard, might yet very possibly find never a farthing in
the purse which She, loving and beloved, embroidered for him; he might
owe rent to his landlord; he might be unable to pay the bootmaker
before mentioned; his very tailor, like France herself, might at last
show signs of disaffection. In short, he might have love and yet be
poor. And poverty spoils a young man's happiness, unless he holds our
transcendental views of the fusion of interests. I know nothing more
wearing than happiness within combined with adversity without. It is
as if you had one leg freezing in the draught from the door, and the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: been grazing somewhere in the draw. Mrs. Shimerda had run to
the animal, pulled up the lariat pin, and, when we came upon her,
she was trying to hide the cow in an old cave in the bank.
As the hole was narrow and dark, the cow held back, and the old
woman was slapping and pushing at her hind quarters, trying to spank
her into the drawside.
Grandfather ignored her singular occupation and greeted her politely.
`Good morning, Mrs. Shimerda. Can you tell me where I will find Ambrosch?
Which field?'
`He with the sod corn.' She pointed toward the north, still standing
in front of the cow as if she hoped to conceal it.
My Antonia |
