| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: give it as best I can in his own language, retaining his popular
parlance.
"Madame, folks from Croisic and those from Batz think this man is
guilty of something, and is doing a penance ordered by a famous rector
to whom he confessed his sin somewhere beyond Nantes. Others think
that Cambremer, that's his name, casts an evil fate on those who come
within his air, and so they always look which way the wind is before
they pass this rock. If it's nor'-westerly they wouldn't go by, no,
not if their errand was to get a bit of the true cross; they'd go
back, frightened. Others--they are the rich folks of Croisic--they say
that Cambremer has made a vow, and that's why people call him the Man
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett: hy'sop one handful" (or whatever herb it was), was received in
respectful silence. One afternoon, when I had listened,--it was
impossible not to listen, with cottonless ears,--and then laughed
and listened again, with an idle pen in my hand, during a
particularly spirited and personal conversation, I reached for my
hat, and, taking blotting-book and all under my arm, I resolutely
fled further temptation, and walked out past the fragrant green
garden and up the dusty road. The way went straight uphill, and
presently I stopped and turned to look back.
The tide was in, the wide harbor was surrounded by its dark
woods, and the small wooden houses stood as near as they could get
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: upward lift in the middle of her red top lip was
distracting, infatuating, maddening. He had never
before seen a woman's lips and teeth which forced upon
his mind with such persistent iteration the old
Elizabethan simile of roses filled with snow. Perfect,
he, as a lover, might have called them off-hand. But
no--they were not perfect. And it was the touch of the
imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the
sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity.
Clare had studied the curves of those lips so many
times that he could reproduce them mentally with ease:
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
