| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: from the time they had decided that Meriem must learn English,
which had been a day or two after her introduction into their home.
The report of the head man plunged Meriem into a period of
despondency, for he had found the village of Kovudoo deserted
nor, search as he would, could he discover a single native
anywhere in the vicinity. For some time he had camped near the
village, spending the days in a systematic search of the environs
for traces of Meriem's Korak; but in this quest, too, had he failed.
He had seen neither apes nor ape-man. Meriem at first insisted
upon setting forth herself in search of Korak, but Bwana prevailed
upon her to wait. He would go himself, he assured her, as soon as
The Son of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from An Inland Voyage by Robert Louis Stevenson: never heard bells speak so intelligibly, or sing so melodiously, as
these. It must have been to some such measure that the spinners
and the young maids sang, 'Come away, Death,' in the Shakespearian
Illyria. There is so often a threatening note, something blatant
and metallic, in the voice of bells, that I believe we have fully
more pain than pleasure from hearing them; but these, as they
sounded abroad, now high, now low, now with a plaintive cadence
that caught the ear like the burthen of a popular song, were always
moderate and tunable, and seemed to fall in with the spirit of
still, rustic places, like the noise of a waterfall or the babble
of a rookery in spring. I could have asked the bell-ringer for his
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: depths of the social theatre.
"And this is only the financial side. Now, consider the political
position. We are struggling in an essentially /bourgeois/ age, in
which honor, virtue, high-mindedness, talent, learning--genius, in
short, is summed up in paying your way, owing nobody anything, and
conducting your affairs with judgment. Be steady, be respectable, have
a wife, and children, pay your rent and taxes, serve in the National
Guard, and be on the same pattern as all the men of your company--then
you may indulge in the loftiest pretensions, rise to the Ministry!--
and you have the best chances possible, since you are no Montmorency.
You were preparing to fulfil all the conditions insisted on for
The Muse of the Department |
