| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: one's feelings with one's interests. A grisette may love
according to her fancy, that is intelligible enough, but you have
a pretty fortune, a family, a name and a place at Court, and you
ought not to fling them out of the window. And what have we been
asking you to do to keep them all?--To manoeuvre carefully
instead of falling foul of social conventions. Lord! I shall
very soon be eighty years old, and I cannot recollect, under any
regime, a love worth the price that you are willing to pay for
the love of this lucky young man."
The Duchess silenced the Vidame with a look; if Montriveau could
have seen that glance, he would have forgiven all.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Underground City by Jules Verne: "I expect nothing," said Harry.
A movement of the ladder machinery now gave the two friends
the opportunity--one to go up, the other down the shaft.
However, they remained where they were.
"Harry," quoth Jack, "do you think I spoke in earnest just
now about Nell?"
"No, that I don't, Jack."
"Well, but now I will!"
"You? speak in earnest?"
"My good fellow, I can tell you I am quite capable of giving a friend
a bit of advice."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall,
[Long live the gay servant that laughs for us all!] [Down, down,
with the tyrant that masters us all!]
The company said I had been shabbily treated, and advised me to
charge the committee double, - which I did. But as I never got my
pay, I don't know that it made much difference. I am a very
particular person about having all I write printed as I write it.
I require to see a proof, a revise, a re-revise, and a double re-
revise, or fourth-proof rectified impression of all my productions,
especially verse. A misprint kills a sensitive author. An
intentional change of his text murders him. No wonder so many
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
