| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Chinese Boy and Girl by Isaac Taylor Headland: down.
He then changed the process. He tossed the bowl a foot
high, and struck it with the other chop-stick one, two, three,
four or five times before it came down, and this he did so
rapidly and regularly as to make it sound almost like
music. There is a record of one of the ancient poets who
was able to play a tune with his bowl and chop-sticks
after having finished his meal. He may have done it in this way.
This trick seemed a very difficult performance. It excited
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Susan by Jane Austen: to make the communication.
What a woman she must be! I long to see her, and shall certainly accept
your kind invitation, that I may form some idea of those bewitching powers
which can do so much--engaging at the same time, and in the same house, the
affections of two men, who were neither of them at liberty to bestow them-
-and all this without the charm of youth! I am glad to find Miss Vernon
does not accompany her mother to Churchhill, as she has not even manners to
recommend her; and, according to Mr. Smith's account, is equally dull and
proud. Where pride and stupidity unite there can be no dissimulation worthy
notice, and Miss Vernon shall be consigned to unrelenting contempt; but by
all that I can gather Lady Susan possesses a degree of captivating deceit
Lady Susan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: as in other matters, I have my own prepossessions
on the subject of beauty. There was a good
deal of breeding in her. . . Breeding in women,
as in horses, is a great thing: a discovery, the
credit of which belongs to young France. It --
that is to say, breeding, not young France --
is chiefly to be detected in the gait, in the hands
and feet; the nose, in particular, is of the greatest
significance. In Russia a straight nose is rarer
than a small foot.
My songstress appeared to be not more than
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