| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: down, and he stood before her again.
"It's just like old times. Nearly walloped the
life out of me to stop me going away, and now I
come back he throws a confounded shovel at my
head to keep me out. It grazed my shoulder."
She shuddered.
"I wouldn't care," he began, "only I spent my
last shillings on the railway fare and my last two-
pence on a shave--out of respect for the old man."
"Are you really Harry Hagberd?" she asked.
"Can you prove it?"
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac: throat was exquisitely round. The bust, well curved and carefully
covered, attracted the eye and inspired reverie. It lacked, no doubt,
the grace which a fitting dress can bestow; but to a connoisseur the
non-flexibility of her figure had its own charm. Eugenie, tall and
strongly made, had none of the prettiness which pleases the masses;
but she was beautiful with a beauty which the spirit recognizes, and
none but artists truly love. A painter seeking here below for a type
of Mary's celestial purity, searching womankind for those proud modest
eyes which Raphael divined, for those virgin lines, often due to
chances of conception, which the modesty of Christian life alone can
bestow or keep unchanged,--such a painter, in love with his ideal,
Eugenie Grandet |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin: and join'd in applauding it. Ralph only made some criticisms,
and propos'd some amendments; but I defended my text. Osborne was
against Ralph, and told him he was no better a critic than poet,
so he dropt the argument. As they two went home together,
Osborne expressed himself still more strongly in favor of what he
thought my production; having restrain'd himself before, as he said,
lest I should think it flattery. "But who would have imagin'd,"
said he, "that Franklin had been capable of such a performance;
such painting, such force, such fire! He has even improv'd the original.
In his common conversation he seems to have no choice of words;
he hesitates and blunders; and yet, good God! how he writes!"
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin |
