| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: lay before you my dispatches upon that business.--They take it kindly, said
the king.--They do, Sire, replied the minister, and have the highest sense
of the honour your majesty has done them--but the republick, as godmother,
claims her right, in this case, of naming the child.
In all reason, quoth the king--she will christen him Francis, or Henry, or
Lewis, or some name that she knows will be agreeable to us. Your majesty
is deceived, replied the minister--I have this hour received a dispatch
from our resident, with the determination of the republic on that point
also.--And what name has the republick fixed upon for the Dauphin?--
Shadrach, Mesech, Abed-nego, replied the minister.--By Saint Peter's
girdle, I will have nothing to do with the Swiss, cried Francis the First,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Last War: A World Set Free by H. G. Wells: pits were abandoned and he got his company away without further
loss.
His regiment fell back unpressed behind the fortified lines
between Namur and Sedan, entrained at a station called Mettet,
and was sent northward by Antwerp and Rotterdam to Haarlem.
Hence they marched into North Holland. It was only after the
march into Holland that he began to realise the monstrous and
catastrophic nature of the struggle in which he was playing his
undistinguished part.
He describes very pleasantly the journey through the hills and
open land of Brabant, the repeated crossing of arms of the Rhine,
The Last War: A World Set Free |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierre Grassou by Honore de Balzac: compliments. The honest artist, that atrocious mediocrity, that heart
of gold, that loyal soul, that stupid draughtsman, that worthy fellow,
decorated by royalty itself with the Legion of honor, put himself
under arms to go out to Ville d'Avray and enjoy the last fine days of
the year. The painter went modestly by public conveyance, and he could
not but admire the beautiful villa of the bottle-dealer, standing in a
park of five acres at the summit of Ville d'Avray, commanding a noble
view of the landscape. Marry Virginie, and have that beautiful villa
some day for his own!
He was received by the Vervelles with an enthusiasm, a joy, a
kindliness, a frank bourgeois absurdity which confounded him. It was
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