| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: pair; the insolent fine gentleman as great a blackguard as the other
in his soiled and mud-stained clothes.
"Which will you lay your money on?" asked Desroches, looking round at
an audience, surprised to find how deeply it was interested.
"A pretty story!" cried Malaga. "My dear boy, go on, I beg of you.
This goes to one's heart."
"Nothing commonplace could happen between two fighting-cocks of that
calibre," added La Palferine.
"Pooh!" cried Malaga. "I will wager my cabinet-maker's invoice (the
fellow is dunning me) that the little toad was too many for Maxime."
"I bet on Maxime," said Cardot. "Nobody ever caught him napping."
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: he has the strength of his opinions, and the girl was brought up to
all such principles. La Pechina would consider herself your equal; for
the old man has made her, as he says, a republican,--just as Pere
Fourchon has made Mouche a bohemian. As for me, I laugh at such ideas,
but you might be displeased. She would revere you as her benefactress,
but never as her superior. It can't be otherwise; she is wild and free
like the swallows--her mother's blood counts for a good deal in what
she is."
"Who was her mother?"
"Doesn't madame know the story?" said Olympe. "Well, the son of the
old sexton at Blangy, a splendid fellow, so the people about here tell
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: He assured me that his own sense could tell him that much. No;
what he had heard on shore was that no respectable person in the
whole town would come near Jacobus. He lived in a large old-
fashioned house in one of the quiet streets with a big garden.
After telling me this Burns put on a mysterious air. "He keeps a
girl shut up there who, they say - "
"I suppose you've heard all this gossip in some eminently
respectable place?" I snapped at him in a most sarcastic tone.
The shaft told, because Mr. Burns, like many other disagreeable
people, was very sensitive himself. He remained as if
thunderstruck, with his mouth open for some further communication,
'Twixt Land & Sea |
