| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Mother by Owen Wister: get away from old Mrs. Beverly."
"'She cannot possibly be less than sixty-five,' Ethel presently
announced. 'And she is far more likely to be seventy.'"
"I thought it best to agree to any age that Ethel chose to give the old
lady."
"'Do you suppose,' Ethel continued, 'that she does it by telephone?'"
"'My dearest,' I responded, 'he must do it all for her, of course, you
know.'"
"'I doubt that very much, Richard. And she strikes me as being the sort
of character for whom a mere telephone would not be enough excitement.
The nerves of those people require more and more stimulants to give them
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: considerable sum of money--and certain receipts for claims on very
distinguished /emigres/ enclosed in a pocketbook full of verses, with
this inscription on the wrapper, /Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas/.
Young La Baudraye did not die, but he owed his life to habits of
monastic strictness; to the economy of action which Fontenelle
preached as the religion of the invalid; and, above all, to the air of
Sancerre and the influence of its fine elevation, whence a panorama
over the valley of the Loire may be seen extending for forty leagues.
From 1802 to 1815 young La Baudraye added several plots to his
vineyards, and devoted himself to the culture of the vine. The
Restoration seemed to him at first so insecure that he dared not go to
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: quiet, and make a great show of politeness, behave with phlegmatic
British dignity, in short."
In another minute Stanislas and Chatelet went to Bargeton.
"Sir," said the injured husband, "do you say that you discovered Mme.
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
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