| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: of horses, and with its little winding ways where people
crowd together, where voices sound as in the corridors of a house,
where the human step circulates as if it skirted the angles
of furniture and shoes never wear out, the place has the character
of an immense collective apartment, in which Piazza San Marco
is the most ornamented corner and palaces and churches,
for the rest, play the part of great divans of repose,
tables of entertainment, expanses of decoration. And somehow
the splendid common domicile, familiar, domestic, and resonant,
also resembles a theater, with actors clicking over bridges and,
in straggling processions, tripping along fondamentas. As
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: fond of his mother, that I cannot trust him with it. So dare I beg of
you to keep it for me? In case of death, Gobseck would make you
legatee of my property. Every contingency is provided for.'
"The Count paused for a moment. He seemed greatly agitated.
" 'A thousand pardons,' he said at length; 'I am in great pain, and
have very grave misgivings as to my health. Recent troubles have
disturbed me very painfully, and forced me to take this great step.'
" 'Allow me first to thank you, monsieur,' said I, 'for the trust you
place me in. But I am bound to deserve it by pointing out to you that
you are disinheriting your--other children. They bear your name.
Merely as the children of a once-loved wife, now fallen from her
Gobseck |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Travels of Sir John Mandeville by Sir John Mandeville: men smite all the body of the dead man in pieces. And then they
say certain orisons. And the fowls of ravine of all the country
about know the custom of long time before, [and] come flying above
in the air; as eagles, gledes, ravens and other fowls of ravine,
that eat flesh. And then the priests cast the gobbets of the flesh
and then the fowls, each of them, taketh that he may, and goeth a
little thence and eateth it; and so they do whilst any piece
lasteth of the dead body.
And after that, as priests amongst us sing for the dead, SUBVENITE
SANCTI DEI, ETC., right so the priests sing with high voice in
their language; Behold how so worthy a man and how good a man this
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