| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: benefits of arbitrary power.
When he went with his report to Jules, he found it necessary to
deceive him, for the unhappy man was in a high fever, unable to leave
his bed. The minister of the Interior mentioned, at a ministerial
dinner that same evening, the singular fancy of a Parisian in wishing
to burn his wife after the manner of the Romans. The clubs of Paris
took up the subject, and talked for a while of the burials of
antiquity. Ancient things were just then becoming a fashion, and some
persons declared that it would be a fine thing to re-establish, for
distinguished persons, the funeral pyre. This opinion had its
defenders and its detractors. Some said that there were too many such
Ferragus |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: "How should I wear it, dear?"
"I don't know; differently from that. You should draw
it differently over your shoulders, round your elbows;
you should look differently behind."
"How should I look?" Charlotte inquired.
"I don't think I can tell you," said Gertrude, plucking out
the scarf a little behind. "I could do it myself, but I don't
think I can explain it."
Charlotte, by a movement of her elbows, corrected the laxity that had come
from her companion's touch. "Well, some day you must do it for me.
It does n't matter now. Indeed, I don't think it matters," she added,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gambara by Honore de Balzac: been struck by the terrible irony of the situation,--this man
expressing the feelings of Mahomet's wife without discovering them in
Marianna,--the husband's hallucination was as nothing compared with
the composer's. There was no hint even of a poetical or musical idea
in the hideous cacophony with which he had deluged their ears; the
first principles of harmony, the most elementary rules of composition,
were absolutely alien to this chaotic structure. Instead of the
scientifically compacted music which Gambara described, his fingers
produced sequences of fifths, sevenths, and octaves, of major thirds,
progressions of fourths with no supporting bass,--a medley of
discordant sounds struck out haphazard in such a way as to be
Gambara |
