| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: stubborn fighter against autumnal coolness, is slow
to attack the advance line of spring's chilly cohorts.
Then arose one from a seat near the leaping foun-
tain, and came and sat himself at Vallance's side.
He was either young or old; cheap lodging-houses
had flavored him mustily; razors and combs had
passed him by; in him drink had been bottled and
sealed in the devil's bond. He begged a match, which
is the form of introduction among park benchers, and
then he began to talk.
"You're not one of the regulars," he said to Val-
The Voice of the City |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: is a characteristic mark of the different species. The Angular
Epeira places 21 in her web, the Banded Epeira 32, the Silky Epeira
42. These numbers are not absolutely fixed; but the variation is
very slight.
Now which of us would undertake, off-hand, without much preliminary
experiment and without measuring-instruments, to divide a circle
into a given quantity of sectors of equal width? The Epeirae,
though weighted with a wallet and tottering on threads shaken by
the wind, effect the delicate division without stopping to think.
They achieve it by a method which seems mad according to our
notions of geometry. Out of disorder they evolve order.
The Life of the Spider |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac: our manners and morals is to harp on old portraits. In these days all
trades change. The grocer becomes a peer of France, artists capitalize
their money, vaudevillists have incomes. A few rare beings may remain
what they originally were, but professions in general have no longer
either their special costume or their formerly fixed habits and ways.
In the past we had Gobseck, Gigounet, Samonon,--the last of the
Romans; to-day we rejoice in Vauvinet, the good-fellow usurer, the
dandy who frequents the greenroom and the lorettes, and drives about
in a little coupe with one horse. Take special note of my man, friend
Gazonal, and you'll see the comedy of money, the cold man who won't
give a penny, the hot man who snuffs a profit; listen to him
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