| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident
which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper
became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta
and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian
ballads, Spanish /sequidillas/, and Neapolitan /canzonettes/.
Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of
the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of
cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can
convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris,
the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love
flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from At the Earth's Core by Edgar Rice Burroughs: hissing into the rank vegetation of the swamp and that was
the last I saw of him.
X
PHUTRA AGAIN
I hastened to the cliff edge above Ja and helped him
to a secure footing. He would not listen to any thanks
for his attempt to save me, which had come so near miscarrying.
"I had given you up for lost when you tumbled into the
Mahar temple," he said, "for not even I could save you from
their clutches, and you may imagine my surprise when on
seeing a canoe dragged up upon the beach of the mainland
At the Earth's Core |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: within that heart? Dead, you will never drive me forth. I am proud
of that rare life! You will know me only in the flower of my
youth; I leave you regrets without disillusions. Jules, it is a
happy death.
"You, who have so fully understood me, may I ask one thing more of
you,--superfluous request, perhaps, the fulfilment of a woman's
fancy, the prayer of a jealousy we all must feel,--I pray you to
burn all that especially belonged to /us/, destroy our chamber,
annihilate all that is a memory of our happiness.
"Once more, farewell,--the last farewell! It is all love, and so
will be my parting thought, my parting breath."
Ferragus |
