| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Emma McChesney & Co. by Edna Ferber: erect and brisk again, and plunged, with a directness that was as
startling as it was new in him, into the details of Middle
Western business.
"Good!" exclaimed Emma McChesney.
"It's all very well to know that Featherlooms are safe in South
America. But the important thing is to know how they're going in
the corn country."
Buck stood up.
"Suppose we transfer this talk to my office. All the papers are
there, all the correspondence--all the orders, everything. You
can get the whole situation in half an hour. What's the use of
Emma McChesney & Co. |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: of those divine creatures who, psychologically, are as far removed
from the Parisian as if they lived at the Antipodes, a being who would
be regarded as profoundly immoral on this side of the Alps, an Italian
(to resume) made the following comment on some French novels which she
had been reading. "I cannot see," she remarked, "why these poor lovers
take such a time over coming to an arrangement which ought to be the
affair of a single morning." Why should not the novelist take a hint
from this worthy lady, and refrain from exhausting the theme and the
reader? Some few passages of coquetry it would certainly be pleasant
to give in outline; the story of Mme. de Beauseant's demurs and sweet
delayings, that, like the vestal virgins of antiquity, she might fall
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: conspicuous,'' said the Jewess; ``he alone is armed
from head to heel, and seems to assume the direction
of all around him.''
``What device does he bear on his shield?'' replied
Ivanhoe.
``Something resembling a bar of iron, and a padlock
painted blue on the black shield.''*
* The author has been here upbraided with false heraldry, as
* having charged metal upon metal. It should be remembered,
* however, that heraldry had only its first rude origin during the
* crusades, and that all the minuti of its fantastic science were
Ivanhoe |
