| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: she had done that Heaven should send her such an angel. She wanted to
be worthy of that love, to perpetuate it, to make it her own forever,
and to gently end her career of frivolity in the paradise she now
foresaw. As for coquetting, quibbling, resisting, she never once
thought of it. She was thinking of something very different!--of the
grandeur of men of genius, and the certainty which her heart divined
that they would never subject the woman they chose to ordinary laws.
Here begins one of those unseen comedies, played in the secret regions
of the consciousness between two beings of whom one will be the dupe
of the other, though it keeps on this side of wickedness; one of those
dark and comic dramas to which that of Tartuffe is mere child's play,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac: camp."
"Show him in," said the countess.
Jacques Bricheteau entered. Expecting to be received in a friendly
country, he had not taken any particular pains with his dress. An old
maroon frock-coat to the cut of which it would have been difficult to
assign a date, a plaid waistcoat buttoned to the throat, surmounted by
a black cravat worn without a collar and twisted round the neck,
yellowish trousers, gray stockings, and laced shoes,--such was the
more than negligent costume in which the organist allowed himself to
appear in a countess's salon.
Requested briefly to sit down, he said,--
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from When a Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart: and two red spots on your cheeks--like whatever-her-name-was with
the snakes instead of hair. I don't know why I'm so crazy about
you; I always meant to love a girl with a nice disposition."
I left him then. Dal had gone into the reception room and closed
the doors. And because he had been acting so strangely, and
partly to escape from Max, whose eyes looked threatening, I
followed him. Just as I opened the door quietly and looked in,
Dallas switched off the lights, and I could hear him groping his
way across the room. Then somebody--not Dal--spoke from the
corner, cautiously.
"Is that you, Mr. Brown, sir?" It was Flannigan.
|
