| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne: we discern no badge of infamy on man or woman. It was the policy
of our ancestors to search out even the most secret sins, and
expose them to shame, without fear or favor, in the broadest
light of the noonday sun. Were such the custom now, perchance we
might find materials for a no less piquant sketch than the above.
Except the malefactors whom we have described, and the diseased
or infirm persons, the whole male population of the town, between
sixteen years and sixty, were seen in the ranks of the trainband.
A few stately savages, in all the pomp and dignity of the
primeval Indian, stood gazing at the spectacle. Their
flint-headed arrows were but childish weapons compared with the
Twice Told Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: when irritated projected their eyes quite out of their heads.
I regret that I was not able to 'plagiarize' this effect, but
I felt that, although crabs may, and doubtless do, behave thus
in real life, in romance they 'will not do so.'
There is an underground river in 'Peter Wilkins', but at the
time of writing the foregoing pages I had not read that quaint
but entertaining work.
It has been pointed out to me that there exists a similarity
between the scene of Umslopogaas frightening Alphonse with his
axe and a scene in Far from the Madding Crowd. I regret this
coincidence, and believe that the talented author of that work
Allan Quatermain |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Forged Coupon by Leo Tolstoy: itual, and full of promise for the future, became
animal and sordid, sad and despairing.
She looked into his eyes and tried to smile,
pretending that she feared nothing, that every-
thing was as it should be; but deep down in her
soul she knew it was all over. She understood
that she had not found in him what she had
sought; that which she had once known in herself
and in Koko. She told him that he must write to
her father asking her hand in marriage. This he
promised to do; but when she met him next he said
The Forged Coupon |
