| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: I am very much mistaken. Let me say that, my dear fellow;
I won't call it anything else, bad or good; I will simply call it NEW"
And overcome with a sense of the novelty thus foreshadowed,
Valentin de Bellegarde threw himself into a deep arm-chair before
the fire, and, with a fixed, intense smile, seemed to read a vision
of it in the flame of the logs. After a while he looked up.
"Go ahead, my boy; you have my good wishes," he said.
"But it is really a pity you don't understand me, that you
don't know just what I am doing."
"Oh," said Newman, laughing, "don't do anything wrong.
Leave me to myself, rather, or defy me, out and out.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Amazing Interlude by Mary Roberts Rinehart: not do that," he said. "It would be easier. But I shall have to go
back and see what can be done."
He was the old Henri to the last, however. He went carefully over her
steamship ticket, and inquired with equal care into the amount of money
she had.
"It will take you home?" he asked.
"Very comfortably, Henri."
"It seems very little."
Then he said, apropos of nothing: "Poor Jean!"
When he left her at last he went to the door, very erect and soldierly.
But he turned there and stood for a moment looking at her, as though
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: egotism and selfishness are forced to pause and are moved to
pity; but the impression that they receive is like a luscious
fruit, soon consumed. Civilization, like the car of Juggernaut,
is scarcely stayed perceptibly in its progress by a heart less
easy to break than the others that lie in its course; this also
is broken, and Civilization continues on her course triumphant.
And you, too, will do the like; you who with this book in your
white hand will sink back among the cushions of your armchair,
and say to yourself, "Perhaps this may amuse me." You will read
the story of Father Goriot's secret woes, and, dining thereafter
with an unspoiled appetite, will lay the blame of your
Father Goriot |
