| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Confidence by Henry James: to understand that, so delighted was he to find them there,
he would remain at Blanquais at least as long as they.
He must have seemed to them wanting in civility, to spend
a whole bright Sunday without apparently troubling his head
about them, and if the unlucky fact of his being in love
with the girl were a reason for doing his duty, it was at least
not a reason for being rude. He had not yet come to that--
to accepting rudeness as an incident of virtue; it had always
been his theory that virtue had the best manners in the world,
and he flattered himself at any rate that he could guard his
integrity without making himself ridiculous. So, at what he
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: dissimulations of the toilet, her beauty was fairly at an end.
"You do not often come here, I think," said Madame d'Espard, after the
usual conventional phrases about the /pleasure/ of their meeting had
passed.
"I never come," replied Madame de l'Estorade.
"And I am most assiduous," said Madame d'Espard.
Then, pretending to a sudden recollection, she added,--
"Ah! I forgot; you have a special interest, I think, on this occasion.
A friend of yours is to be /judged/, is he not?"
"Yes; Monsieur de Sallenauve has been to our house several times."
"How sad it is," said the marquise, "to see a man who, Monsieur de
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Elizabeth and her German Garden by Marie Annette Beauchamp: between the sublime and the ridiculous possible in a rockery."
I stood shaking my head disapprovingly at the rockery before me,
lost in these reflections, when a sudden quick pattering of feet
coming along in a great hurry made me turn round with a start,
just in time to receive the shock of a body tumbling out
of the mist and knocking violently against me.
It was a little girl of about twelve years old.
"Hullo!" said the little girl in excellent English;
and then we stared at each other in astonishment.
"I thought you were Miss Robinson," said the little girl,
offering no apology for having nearly knocked me down.
Elizabeth and her German Garden |
