| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: "Oh, Dobinard (Topinard)!" Schmucke cried out at the sight of him,
"/you/ love Bons!"
"Why, I have come to ask news of M. Pons every morning, sir."
"Efery morning! boor Dobinard!" and Schmucke squeezed the man's hand.
"But they took me for a relation, no doubt, and did not like my visits
at all. I told them that I belonged to the theatre and came to inquire
after M. Pons; but it was no good. They saw through that dodge, they
said. I asked to see the poor dear man, but they never would let me
come upstairs."
"Dat apominable Zipod!" said Schmucke, squeezing Topinard's horny hand
to his heart.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Shadow Line by Joseph Conrad: It answered in a tone of patient suffering:
"Right amidships, sir."
Then I descended to the quarter-deck. It was
impossible to tell whence the blow would come. To
look round the ship was to look into a bottomless,
black pit. The eye lost itself in inconceivable
depths.
I wanted to ascertain whether the ropes had been
picked up off the deck. One could only do that by
feeling with one's feet. In my cautious progress I
came against a man in whom I recognized
The Shadow Line |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Rezanov by Gertrude Atherton: vellously inlaid, were my credentials. I was sur-
rounded by curtains of sky-blue silk and panels of
polished lacquer inwrought with the Imperial arms
in gold. The awning of blue and white silk was
lined with a delicate and beautiful tapestry, and the
reverse sides of the silken partitions were of canvas
painted by the masters of the country. The pol-
ished floor was covered by a magnificent carpet
woven with alarming dragons whose jaws pointed
directly at my chair of state. And such an escort
and such a reception, both of ceremony and of
Rezanov |
