| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: the two hussies. The Baron, like all bad lots, is very pleasant, a
thoroughly jolly good fellow. Yes, he took my fancy, the old rascal.
He could be so funny!--Well, enough of those reminiscences. We got to
be like brothers. The scoundrel--quite Regency in his notions--tried
indeed to deprave me altogether, preached Saint-Simonism as to women,
and all sorts of lordly ideas; but, you see, I was fond enough of my
girl to have married her, only I was afraid of having children.
"Then between two old daddies, such friends as--as we were, what more
natural than that we should think of our children marrying each other?
--Three months after his son had married my Celestine, Hulot--I don't
know how I can utter the wretch's name! he has cheated us both, madame
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: and demigods and heroes.
I have said enough in answer to the charge of Meletus: any elaborate
defence is unnecessary, but I know only too well how many are the enmities
which I have incurred, and this is what will be my destruction if I am
destroyed;--not Meletus, nor yet Anytus, but the envy and detraction of the
world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the
death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.
Some one will say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life
which is likely to bring you to an untimely end? To him I may fairly
answer: There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not
to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: nut, trying to get his head, jerked the left hand,
covered by a thick dogskin glove, the doctor raised
his voice over the hedge: "How's your child,
Amy?"
I had the time to see her dull face, red, not with
a mantling blush, but as if her flat cheeks had been
vigorously slapped, and to take in the squat figure,
the scanty, dusty brown hair drawn into a tight
knot at the back of the head. She looked quite
young. With a distinct catch in her breath, her
voice sounded low and timid.
Amy Foster |
