| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Across The Plains by Robert Louis Stevenson: by incommoding me, as was then very easy; and that not from ill-
nature, but mere clodlike incapacity to think, for he expected me
to join the laugh. I did so, but it was phantom merriment. Later
on, a man from Kansas had three violent epileptic fits, and though,
of course, there were not wanting some to help him, it was rather
superstitious terror than sympathy that his case evoked among his
fellow-passengers. "Oh, I hope he's not going to die!" cried a
woman; "it would be terrible to have a dead body!" And there was a
very general movement to leave the man behind at the next station.
This, by good fortune, the conductor negatived.
There was a good deal of story-telling in some quarters; in others,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ten Years Later by Alexandre Dumas: said to him, "Take care they don't see you from Belle-Isle!"
These words produced the same effect upon D'Artagnan as the
hissing of the first bullet on a day of battle; he let go of
both line and conger, which, dragging each other, returned
again to the water. D'Artagnan perceived, within half a
league at most, the blue and marked profile of the rocks of
Belle-Isle, dominated by the majestic whiteness of the
castle. In the distance, the land with its forests and
verdant plains; cattle on the grass. This was what first
attracted the attention of the musketeer. The sun darted its
rays of gold upon the sea, raising a shining mist round this
Ten Years Later |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Camille by Alexandre Dumas: one of those diseases that never relent; but the interest you
still take in me makes my suffering less. I shall not live long
enough, I expect, to have the happiness of pressing the hand
which has written the kind letter I have just received; the words
of it would be enough to cure me, if anything could cure me. I
shall not see you, for I am quite near death, and you are
hundreds of leagues away. My poor friend! your Marguerite of old
times is sadly changed. It is better perhaps for you not to see
her again than to see her as she is. You ask if I forgive you;
oh, with all my heart, friend, for the way you hurt me was only a
way of proving the love you had for me. I have been in bed for a
Camille |
