| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Two Poets by Honore de Balzac: fifty if we used Chinese paper. That surely would be a triumph, for
the housing of many books has come to be a difficulty; everything has
grown smaller of late; this is not an age of giants; men have shrunk,
everything about them shrinks, and house-room into the bargain. Great
mansions and great suites of rooms will be abolished sooner or later
in Paris, for no one will afford to live in the great houses built by
our forefathers. What a disgrace for our age if none of its books
should last! Dutch paper--that is, paper made from flax--will be quite
unobtainable in ten years' time. Well, your brother told me of this
idea of your father's, this plan for using vegetable fibre in paper-
making, so you see that if I succeed, you have a right to----"
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac: short, thin, ugly little man, as dismal as a Spaniard, as great a bore
as a banker. He was looked upon, however, as a profound politician,
perhaps because he rarely laughed, and was always quoting M. de
Metternich or Wellington.
This mysterious family had all the attractiveness of a poem by Lord
Byron, whose difficult passages were translated differently by each
person in fashionable society; a poem that grew more obscure and more
sublime from strophe to strophe. The reserve which Monsieur and Madame
de Lanty maintained concerning their origin, their past lives, and
their relations with the four quarters of the globe would not, of
itself, have been for long a subject of wonderment in Paris. In no
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: a conciliatory air, for she wanted to show that she also could be
generous.
"She has sold everything she had that was worth selling, and
now she is enjoying herself. The flower table is always attractive,
you know, `especially to gentlemen'."
Jo couldn't resist giving that little slap, but May took it
so meekly she regretted it a minute after, and fell to praising
the great vases, which still remained unsold.
"Is Amy's illumination anywhere about" I took a fancy to
buy that for Father," said Jo, very anxious to learn the fate of
her sister's work.
Little Women |
