| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Youth by Joseph Conrad: that sent them there? They didn't think their pay half
good enough. No; it was something in them, something
inborn and subtle and everlasting. I don't say posi-
tively that the crew of a French or German merchant-
man wouldn't have done it, but I doubt whether it would
have been done in the same way. There was a complete-
ness in it, something solid like a principle, and masterful
like an instinct--a disclosure of something secret--of
that hidden something, that gift, of good or evil that
makes racial difference, that shapes the fate of nations.
"It was that night at ten that, for the first time since
Youth |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: de Bargeton and M. de Rubempre in an equivocal position?"
"M. Chardon," corrected Stanislas, with ironical stress; he did not
take Bargeton seriously.
"So be it," answered the other. "If you do not withdraw your
assertions at once before the company now in your house, I must ask
you to look for a second. My father-in-law, M. de Negrepelisse, will
wait upon you at four o'clock to-morrow morning. Both of us may as
well make our final arrangements, for the only way out of the affair
is the one that I have indicated. I choose pistols, as the insulted
party."
This was the speech that M. de Bargeton had ruminated on the way; it
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In a German Pension by Katherine Mansfield: her.
"Fritz will get you some beer," she said. "My dear, your skirt is open at
the back. We could not help laughing as you walked up the room with the
white tape of your petticoat showing!"
"But how frightful!" said Frau Brechenmacher, collapsing into her chair and
biting her lip.
"Na, it's over now," said Frau Rupp, stretching her fat hands over the
table and regarding her three mourning rings with intense enjoyment; "but
one must be careful, especially at a wedding."
"And such a wedding as this," cried Frau Ledermann, who sat on the other
side of Frau Brechenmacher. "Fancy Theresa bringing that child with her.
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