| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton: five footmen kept. There's not the least hurry, of course; but
I rather think Nick himself would advise it."
She flushed to the temples, remembering that Nick had; and the
remembrance made Strefford's sneering philosophy seem less
unbearable. Why should she not lunch with him, after all? In
the first days of his mourning he had come to Paris expressly to
see her, and to offer her one of the oldest names and one of the
greatest fortunes in England. She thought of Ursula Gillow,
Ellie Vanderlyn, Violet Melrose, of their condescending
kindnesses, their last year's dresses, their Christmas cheques,
and all the careless bounties that were so easy to bestow and so
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: order to sell them; and some fair Lacedaemonian women were taken by
New Carthaginians in marriage.
A few persisted in following the armies. They ran on the flank of the
syntagmata by the side of the captains. They called to their husbands,
pulled them by the cloak, cursed them as they beat their breasts, and
held out their little naked and weeping children at arm's length. The
sight of them was unmanning the Barbarians; they were an embarrassment
and a peril. Several times they were repulsed, but they came back
again; Matho made the horsemen belonging to Narr' Havas charge them
with the point of the lance; and on some Balearians shouting out to
him that they must have women, he replied: "I have none!"
Salammbo |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy: chief. . .and thus they will have an opportunity of speaking to him
to-night, just as he directed them to do. Therefore, this morning,
those two young gallants found every bar and bolt open in that lonely
house on the Dover Road, their jailers disappeared, and two good
horses standing ready saddled and tethered in the yard. I have not
seen them yet, but I think we may safely conclude that they did not
draw rein until they reached London. Now you see how simple it all
is, citoyenne!"
"It does seem simple, doesn't it?" she said, with a final
bitter attempt at flippancy, "when you want to kill a chicken. . .you
take hold of it. . .then you wring its neck. . .it's only the chicken
The Scarlet Pimpernel |
