| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Persuasion by Jane Austen: said Captain Wentworth, "we must consider it to be the arrangement
of Providence, that you should not be introduced to your cousin."
When she could command Mary's attention, Anne quietly tried
to convince her that their father and Mr Elliot had not, for many years,
been on such terms as to make the power of attempting an introduction
at all desirable.
At the same time, however, it was a secret gratification to herself
to have seen her cousin, and to know that the future owner of Kellynch
was undoubtedly a gentleman, and had an air of good sense.
She would not, upon any account, mention her having met with him
the second time; luckily Mary did not much attend to their having
Persuasion |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: speech, which the notary thought very funny; then I sat down in my
armchair, with my feet on the fire-dogs. I had lost myself in a
romance /a la/ Radcliffe, constructed on the juridical base given me
by Monsieur Regnault, when the door, opened by a woman's cautious
hand, turned on the hinges. I saw my landlady come in, a buxom, florid
dame, always good-humored, who had missed her calling in life. She was
a Fleming, who ought to have seen the light in a picture by Teniers.
" 'Well, monsieur,' said she, 'Monsieur Regnault has no doubt been
giving you his history of la Grande Breteche?'
" 'Yes, Madame Lepas.'
" 'And what did he tell you?'
La Grande Breteche |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dead Souls by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: pupils, and the admiration of his assistants, Alexander Petrovitch
was gifted with an extraordinary measure of good sense. How thoroughly
he knew the peculiarities of the Russian of his day! How well he
understood boys! How capable he was of drawing them out! Not a
practical joker in the school but, after perpetrating a prank, would
voluntarily approach his preceptor and make to him free confession.
True, the preceptor would put a stern face upon the matter, yet the
culprit would depart with head held higher, not lower, than before,
since in Alexander Petrovitch there was something which
heartened--something which seemed to say to a delinquent: "Forward
you! Rise to your feet again, even though you have fallen!" Not
Dead Souls |
