| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: was the last prince to avail himself of this privilege."
"And God alone knows how dearly he paid for it," said Lord Dudley.
"Nowadays princes have lady-like wives, obliged to share their opera-
box with other ladies; royal favor could not raise them higher by a
hair's breadth; they glide unremarkable between the waters of the
citizen class and those of the nobility--not altogether noble nor
altogether /bourgeoises/," said the Marquise de Rochegude acridly.
"The press has fallen heir to the Woman," exclaimed Rastignac. "She no
longer has the quality of a spoken /feuilleton/--delightful calumnies
graced by elegant language. We read /feuilletons/ written in a dialect
which changes every three years, society papers about as mirthful as
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: and I could listen my fill to the sounds of the English language,
as far as it is used at a breakfast-table by men who do not
believe in wasting many words on the mere amenities of life.
This was my first contact with British mankind apart from the
tourist kind seen in the hotels of Zurich and Lucerne--the kind
which has no real existence in a workaday world. I know now that
the bald-headed man spoke with a strong Scotch accent. I have
met many of his kind ashore and afloat. The second engineer of
the steamer Mavis, for instance, ought to have been his twin
brother. I cannot help thinking that he really was, though for
some reason of his own he assured me that he never had a twin
A Personal Record |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: wanted pumping eight hours out of the twenty-four;
and the nautical papers inserted again the little para-
graph: 'Judea. Bark. Tyne to Bankok; coals; put
back to Falmouth leaky and with crew refusing duty.'
"There were more delays--more tinkering. The
owner came down for a day, and said she was as right as
a little fiddle. Poor old Captain Beard looked like the
ghost of a Geordie skipper--through the worry and
humiliation of it. Remember he was sixty, and it was his
first command. Mahon said it was a foolish business,
and would end badly. I loved the ship more than ever,
Youth |
