| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: he took a large one. He was happy! A man who has no hobby does not
know all the good to be got out of life. A hobby is the happy medium
between a passion and a monomania. At this moment I understood the
whole bearing of Sterne's charming passion, and had a perfect idea of
the delight with which my uncle Toby, encouraged by Trim, bestrode his
hobby-horse.
" 'Monsieur,' said Monsieur Regnault, 'I was head-clerk in Monsieur
Roguin's office, in Paris. A first-rate house, which you may have
heard mentioned? No! An unfortunate bankruptcy made it famous.--Not
having money enough to purchase a practice in Paris at the price to
which they were run up in 1816, I came here and bought my
La Grande Breteche |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: the foreign boughs were not much modified by their new life-blood,
nor was the tree in its turn at all affected by them. Connected with
it only as separable parts of its structure, the cuttings might have
been lopped off again without influencing perceptibly the condition
of the foster-parent stem. The grafts in time grew to be great
branches, but the trunk remained through it all the trunk of a
sapling. In other words, the nation grew up to man's estate, keeping
the mind of its childhood.
What is thus true of the Japanese is true likewise of the Koreans
and of the Chinese. The three peoples, indeed, form so many links in
one long chain of borrowing. China took from India, then Korea
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: red slippers. He felt deadly sick, and stood for a time in profound
darkness. Then Makola appeared before him, saying quietly: "Come
along, Mr. Kayerts. He is dead." He burst into tears of gratitude; a
loud, sobbing fit of crying. After a time he found himself sitting in
a chair and looking at Carlier, who lay stretched on his back. Makola
was kneeling over the body.
"Is this your revolver?" asked Makola, getting up.
"Yes," said Kayerts; then he added very quickly, "He ran after me to
shoot me--you saw!"
"Yes, I saw," said Makola. "There is only one revolver; where's his?"
"Don't know," whispered Kayerts in a voice that had become suddenly
Tales of Unrest |
