| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Whirligigs by O. Henry: with a few phases of Bowery life. I will be pleased to
place whatever knowledge and experience I have at the
service of my friend Donahue's friends."
Rivington seemed ill at ease.
"I say," he said -- somewhat entreatingly, "I thought --
you're not stringing us, are you? It isn't just the kind
of talk we expected. You haven't even said 'Hully gee!'
once. Do you really belong on the Bowery?"
"I am afraid," said the Bowery boy, smilingly, "that
at some time you have been enticed into one of the dives
of literature and had the counterfeit coin of the Bowery
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Another Study of Woman by Honore de Balzac: ordinary woman look like a turtle, but which in her sets off the most
beautiful forms while concealing them. How does she do it? This secret
she keeps, though unguarded by any patent.
"As she walks she gives herself a little concentric and harmonious
twist, which makes her supple or dangerous slenderness writhe under
the stuff, as a snake does under the green gauze of trembling grass.
Is it to an angel or a devil that she owes the graceful undulation
which plays under her long black silk cape, stirs its lace frill,
sheds an airy balm, and what I should like to call the breeze of a
Parisienne? You may recognize over her arms, round her waist, about
her throat, a science of drapery recalling the antique Mnemosyne.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: can pardon so many weaknesses which your own heart never knows,
can best bestow your commiseration on the agitations of the
bosom, which, for a moment, affect both head and limbs. I came
to your presence a doubting and an accused subject; your goodness
penetrated the clouds of defamation, and restored me to my
honour, and, what is yet dearer, to your favour--is it wonderful,
though for me it is most unhappy, that my master of the horse
should have found me in a state which scarce permitted me to make
the exertion necessary to follow him to this place, when one
glance of your Highness, although, alas! an angry one, has had
power to do that for me in which Esculapius might have failed?"
Kenilworth |
