| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll: I know one of the head-waiters."
I couldn't help laughing at this idea.
"Do the waiters invite the guests?" I asked.
"Oh, not to sit down!" Bruno said. "But to wait at table.
Oo'd like that, wouldn't oo? To hand about plates, and so on."
"Well, but that's not so nice as sitting at the table, is it?"
"Of course it isn't," Bruno said, in a tone as if he rather pitied my
ignorance; "but if oo're not even Sir Anything, oo ca'n't expect to be
allowed to sit at the table, oo know."
I said, as meekly as I could, that I didn't expect it, but it was the
only way of going to a dinner-party that I really enjoyed. And Bruno
Sylvie and Bruno |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: the end of which flickers the pallid gleam of an oil lamp, and if
beneath that gleam appears the horrid face of a withered old woman
with fleshless fingers, ah, then! and we say it in the interests of
young and pretty women, that woman is lost. She is at the mercy of the
first man of her acquaintance who sees her in that Parisian slough.
There is more than one street in Paris where such a meeting may lead
to a frightful drama, a bloody drama of death and love, a drama of the
modern school.
Unhappily, this scene, this modern drama itself, will be comprehended
by only a small number of persons; and it is a pity to tell the tale
to a public which cannot enter into its local merit. But who can
Ferragus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey: on the stones, and the sound came nearer and nearer. Silence
intervened until Lassiter's soft, jingling step assured her of
his approach. When he appeared he was covered with blood.
"All right, Jane," he said. "I come back. An' don't worry."
With water from a canteen he washed the blood from his face and
hands.
"Jane, hurry now. Tear my scarf in two, en' tie up these places.
That hole through my hand is some inconvenient, worse 'n this at
over my ear. There--you're doin' fine! Not a bit nervous--no
tremblin'. I reckon I ain't done your courage justice. I'm glad
you're brave jest now--you'll need to be. Well, I was hid pretty
Riders of the Purple Sage |
