| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Mansion by Henry van Dyke: "Mother," he said, "you have a wonderful hand. And father made
no mistake
when he won you. But are you sure he has always been so
inerrant?"
"Harold," she exclaimed, a little stiffly, "what do you mean?
His life is an open book."
"Oh," he answered, "I don't mean anything bad, mother dear.
I know the governor's life is an open book--a ledger, if you
like,
kept in the best bookkeeping hand, and always ready for
inspection--every page correct, and showing a handsome balance.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: drawing-room when the study is so comfortable?"
"I quite understand why you ask, sir," said Eugenie, making
a sign that her father might be seated, "and in fact your
two questions suggest fully the theme of our conversation. I
will answer them both, and contrary to the usual method, the
last first, because it is the least difficult. I have chosen
the drawing-room, sir, as our place of meeting, in order to
avoid the disagreeable impressions and influences of a
banker's study. Those gilded cashbooks, drawers locked like
gates of fortresses, heaps of bank-bills, come from I know
not where, and the quantities of letters from England,
The Count of Monte Cristo |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: about the size of a damson.
We can judge the method of manufacture from the structure. Like
the Lycosa, whom we saw, in Chapter III., at work in one of my
earthenware pans, the Cross Spider, on the support supplied by a
few threads stretched between the nearest objects, begins by making
a shallow saucer of sufficient thickness to dispense with
subsequent corrections. The process is easily guessed. The tip of
the abdomen goes up and down, down and up with an even beat, while
the worker shifts her place a little. Each time, the spinnerets
add a bit of thread to the carpet already made.
When the requisite thickness is obtained, the mother empties her
The Life of the Spider |
