| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: which they see with the aid of the microscope in a drop of water; but
what would Rabelais' Gargantua,--that misunderstood figure of an
audacity so sublime,--what would that giant say, fallen from the
celestial spheres, if he amused himself by contemplating the motions
of this secondary life of Paris, of which here is one of the formulae?
Have you seen one of those little constructions--cold in summer, and
with no other warmth than a small stove in winter--placed beneath the
vast copper dome which crowns the Halle-auble? Madame is there by
morning. She is engaged at the markets, and makes by this occupation
twelve thousand francs a year, people say. Monsieur, when Madame is
up, passes into a gloomy office, where he lends money till the week-
The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: Chapter 2. Family.
In the first place, then, the poor little Japanese baby is ushered
into this world in a sadly impersonal manner, for he is not even
accorded the distinction of a birthday. He is permitted instead
only the much less special honor of a birth-year. Not that he
begins his separate existence otherwise than is the custom of
mortals generally, at a definite instant of time, but that very
little subsequent notice is ever taken of the fact. On the contrary,
from the moment he makes his appearance he is spoken of as a year
old, and this same age he continues to be considered in most simple
ease of calculation, till the beginning of the next calendar year.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: of the brother and sister. But no sooner had the clerks or the young
women found a way of escape from that dreadful establishment than they
fled, with rejoicings that increased the already bad name of the
Rogrons. New victims were supplied yearly by the indefatigable old
father.
From the time she was fifteen, Sylvie Rogron, trained to the simpering
of a saleswoman, had two faces,--the amiable face of the seller, the
natural face of a sour spinster. Her acquired countenance was a
marvellous bit of mimicry. She was all smiles. Her voice, soft and
wheedling, gave a commercial charm to business. Her real face was that
we have already seen projecting from the half-opened blinds; the mere
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