| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence: waved against steam, and patch after patch of raw reddish brick showed
the newer mining settlements, sometimes in the hollows, sometimes
gruesomely ugly along the sky-line of the slopes. And between, in
between, were the tattered remnants of the old coaching and cottage
England, even the England of Robin Hood, where the miners prowled with
the dismalness of suppressed sporting instincts, when they were not at
work.
England, my England! But which is MY England? The stately homes of
England make good photographs, and create the illusion of a connexion
with the Elizabethans. The handsome old halls are there, from the days
of Good Queen Anne and Tom Jones. But smuts fall and blacken on the
Lady Chatterley's Lover |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Village Rector by Honore de Balzac: religious fervor of the Sauviats, deigned to marry Veronique himself.
The bride was very generally voted plain.
She entered her new house, and went from one surprise to another. A
grand dinner was to precede the ball, to which Graslin had invited
nearly all Limoges. The dinner, given to the bishop, the prefect, the
judge of the court, the attorney-general, the mayor, the general, and
Graslin's former partners with their wives, was a triumph for the
bride, who, like all other persons who are simple and natural, showed
charms that were not expected in her. Neither of the bridal pair could
dance; Veronique continued therefore to do the honors to her guests,
and to win the esteem and good graces of nearly all the persons who
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Facino Cane by Honore de Balzac: two or three hundred ducats about me wherever I went."
He drew a couple of gold coins from his pocket and showed them to me
as he spoke.
"I can tell by instinct when gold is near. Blind as I am, I stop
before a jeweler's shop windows. That passion was the ruin of me; I
took to gambling to play with gold. I was not a cheat, I was cheated,
I ruined myself. I lost all my fortune. Then the longing to see Bianca
once more possessed me like a frenzy. I stole back to Venice and found
her again. For six months I was happy; she hid me in her house and fed
me. I thought thus deliciously to finish my days. But the Provveditore
courted her, and guessed that he had a rival; we in Italy can feel
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