| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: money?' and finally, to be able to renew at pleasure the pink rosettes
that adorn the ears of three thoroughbreds and the lining of your hat?
"To such inquiry any ordinary young man (and we ourselves that are not
ordinary men) would reply that the happiness is incomplete; that it is
like the Madeleine without the altar; that a man must love and be
loved, or love without return, or be loved without loving, or love at
cross purposes. Now for happiness as a mental condition.
"In January 1823, after Godefroid de Beaudenord had set foot in the
various social circles which it pleased him to enter, and knew his way
about in them, and felt himself secure amid these joys, he saw the
necessity of a sunshade--the advantage of having a great lady to
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane: he sighed with comfortable delight.
The loud young soldier watched his comrade
with an air of satisfaction. He later produced
an extensive handkerchief from his pocket. He
folded it into a manner of bandage and soused
water from the other canteen upon the middle of
it. This crude arrangement he bound over the
youth's head, tying the ends in a queer knot at
the back of the neck.
"There," he said, moving off and surveying
his deed, "yeh look like th' devil, but I bet yeh
The Red Badge of Courage |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass: made three dollars during the holidays, he might make three
hundred during the year. Not to be drunk during the holi<195
EFFECTS OF HOLIDAYS>days, was disgraceful; and he was esteemed a
lazy and improvident man, who could not afford to drink whisky
during Christmas.
The fiddling, dancing and _"jubilee beating_," was going on in
all directions. This latter performance is strictly southern.
It supplies the place of a violin, or of other musical
instruments, and is played so easily, that almost every farm has
its "Juba" beater. The performer improvises as he beats, and
sings his merry songs, so ordering the words as to have them fall
My Bondage and My Freedom |
