| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: not take more trouble to preserve the sanctity of their interviews;
and he liked her the more for her innocent-looking indifference
and her apparently inexhaustible good humor. He could hardly have
said why, but she seemed to him a girl who would never be jealous.
At the risk of exciting a somewhat derisive smile on the reader's part,
I may affirm that with regard to the women who had hitherto interested him,
it very often seemed to Winterbourne among the possibilities that, given
certain contingencies, he should be afraid--literally afraid--of these ladies;
he had a pleasant sense that he should never be afraid of Daisy Miller.
It must be added that this sentiment was not altogether flattering to Daisy;
it was part of his conviction, or rather of his apprehension, that she
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: take it out on the return journey into the country; and David entered
into possession of three bare, unfurnished rooms on the day that saw
him installed in the printing-house, without one sou wherewith to pay
his men's wages. When he asked his father, as a partner, to contribute
his share towards the working expenses, the old man pretended not to
understand. He had found the printing-house, he said, and he was not
bound to find the money too. He had paid his share. Pressed close by
his son's reasoning, he answered that when he himself had paid
Rouzeau's widow he had not had a penny left. If he, a poor, ignorant
working man, had made his way, Didot's apprentice should do still
better. Besides, had not David been earning money, thanks to an
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: verses?"
But Ceres shook her head, and hastened away, along with Hecate.
Phoebus (who, as I have told you, was an exquisite poet)
forthwith began to make an ode about the poor mother's grief;
and, if we were to judge of his sensibility by this beautiful
production, he must have been endowed with a very tender heart.
But when a poet gets into the habit of using his heartstrings
to make chords for his lyre, he may thrum upon them as much as
he will, without any great pain to himself. Accordingly, though
Phoebus sang a very sad song, he was as merry all the while as
were the sunbeams amid which he dwelt.
Tanglewood Tales |
