| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: him his horse to hold. Then we went up to the old bill discounter.
" 'M. Gobseck,' said I, 'I have brought one of my most intimate
friends to see you (whom I trust as I would trust the Devil,' I added
for the old man's private ear). 'To oblige me you will do your best
for him (at the ordinary rate), and pull him out of his difficulty (if
it suits your convenience).'
"M. de Trailles made his bow to Gobseck, took a seat, and listened to
us with a courtier-like attitude; its charming humility would have
touched your heart to see, but my Gobseck sits in his chair by the
fireside without moving a muscle, or changing a feature. He looked
very like the statue of Voltaire under the peristyle of the Theatre-
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde: in the air. It grovelled on the ground, and, when he looked at it,
it watched him with a face drawn with pain. He crept away, lest he
should see it, and covered his eyes with his hands. He crawled,
like some wounded thing, into the shadow, and lay there moaning.
And at that moment the Infanta herself came in with her companions
through the open window, and when they saw the ugly little dwarf
lying on the ground and beating the floor with his clenched hands,
in the most fantastic and exaggerated manner, they went off into
shouts of happy laughter, and stood all round him and watched him.
'His dancing was funny,' said the Infanta; 'but his acting is
funnier still. Indeed he is almost as good as the puppets, only of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Animal Farm by George Orwell: to the site of the windmill unassisted.
The animals were not badly off throughout that summer, in spite of the
hardness of their work. If they had no more food than they had had in
Jones's day, at least they did not have less. The advantage of only having
to feed themselves, and not having to support five extravagant human
beings as well, was so great that it would have taken a lot of failures to
outweigh it. And in many ways the animal method of doing things was more
efficient and saved labour. Such jobs as weeding, for instance, could be
done with a thoroughness impossible to human beings. And again, since no
animal now stole, it was unnecessary to fence off pasture from arable
land, which saved a lot of labour on the upkeep of hedges and gates.
Animal Farm |
