| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: the young man, following the carriage at a run, to solve his last
doubts; and soon he did so.
The carriage stopped in the rue de Richelieu before a shop for
artificial flowers, close to the rue de Menars. The lady got out,
entered the shop, sent out the money to pay the coachman, and
presently left the shop herself, on foot, after buying a bunch of
marabouts. Marabouts for her black hair! The officer beheld her,
through the window-panes, placing the feathers to her head to see the
effect, and he fancied he could hear the conversation between herself
and the shop-woman.
"Oh! madame, nothing is more suitable for brunettes: brunettes have
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moon-Face and Other Stories by Jack London: "Don't see him about," Paul remarked unconcernedly, and we set off across the
fields.
I could not imagine, at the time, what was ailing me, but I had a feeling of
some impending and deadly illness. My nerves were all awry, and, from the
astounding tricks they played me, my senses seemed to have run riot. Strange
sounds disturbed me. At times I heard the swish-swish of grass being shoved
aside, and once the patter of feet across a patch of stony ground.
"Did you hear anything, Paul?" I asked once.
But he shook his head, and thrust his feet steadily forward.
While climbing a fence, I heard the low, eager whine of a dog, apparently from
within a couple of feet of me; but on looking about me I saw nothing.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: to him. His rapid, skimming walk; his swarthy
complexion; his hat cocked on the left ear; his hab-
it, on warm evenings, of wearing his coat over one
shoulder, like a hussar's dolman; his manner of
leaping over the stiles, not as a feat of agility, but
in the ordinary course of progression--all these
peculiarities were, as one may say, so many causes
of scorn and offence to the inhabitants of the vil-
lage. They wouldn't in their dinner hour lie flat
on their backs on the grass to stare at the sky.
Neither did they go about the fields screaming dis-
Amy Foster |
