| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The American by Henry James: he is by no means sitting for his portrait. But listless
as he lounges there, rather baffled on the aesthetic question,
and guilty of the damning fault (as we have lately discovered it to be)
of confounding the merit of the artist with that of his work
(for he admires the squinting Madonna of the young lady with
the boyish coiffure, because he thinks the young lady herself
uncommonly taking), he is a sufficiently promising acquaintance.
Decision, salubrity, jocosity, prosperity, seem to hover
within his call; he is evidently a practical man, but the idea
in his case, has undefined and mysterious boundaries,
which invite the imagination to bestir itself on his behalf.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Confessio Amantis by John Gower: Til ate laste thei acorden
Be nihtes time forto wende
Al one out fro the tounes ende, 1380
Wher was a welle under a Tree;
And who cam ferst, or sche or he,
He scholde stille there abide.
So it befell the nyhtes tide
This maiden, which desguised was,
Al prively the softe pas
Goth thurgh the large toun unknowe,
Til that sche cam withinne a throwe
Confessio Amantis |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from At the Sign of the Cat & Racket by Honore de Balzac: your husband to his senses."
She rose with a smile to guide the young and guileless apprentice to
conjugal arts through the labyrinth of her palace. They came to a
back-staircase, which led up to the reception rooms. As Madame de
Carigliano pressed the secret springlock of the door she stopped,
looking at Augustine with an inimitable gleam of shrewdness and grace.
"The Duc de Carigliano adores me," said she. "Well, he dare not enter
by this door without my leave. And he is a man in the habit of
commanding thousands of soldiers. He knows how to face a battery, but
before me,--he is afraid!"
Augustine sighed. They entered a sumptuous gallery, where the
|
