| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: them. Gratitude is a charge upon the inheritance which the second
generation is apt to repudiate.
"This adventure," Derville began after a pause, "brings the one
romantic event in my life to my mind. You are laughing already," he
went on; "it seems so ridiculous, doesn't it, that an attorney should
speak of a romance in his life? But once I was five-and-twenty, like
everybody else, and even then I had seen some queer things. I ought to
begin at the beginning by telling you about some one whom it is
impossible that you should have known. The man in question was a
usurer.
"Can you grasp a clear notion of that sallow, wan face of his? I wish
Gobseck |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: At that moment he raised his eyes -- I was stand-
ing in the doorway opposite to him. He grew
terribly red. I went up to him and said, slowly
and distinctly:
"I am very sorry that I did not come in before
you had given your word of honour in confirma-
tion of a most abominable calumny: my presence
would have saved you from that further act of
baseness."
Grushnitski jumped up from his seat and
seemed about to fly into a passion.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: pontiffs arranged an enclosure with trellis-work to keep off the
multitude, and remained around him at his feet.
The priests of Khamon, in tawny woollen robes, formed a line before
their temple beneath the columns of the portico; those of Eschmoun, in
linen mantles with necklaces of koukouphas' heads and pointed tiaras,
posted themselves on the steps of the Acropolis; the priests of
Melkarth, in violet tunics, took the western side; the priests of the
Abbadirs, clasped with bands of Phrygian stuffs, placed themselves on
the east, while towards the south, with the necromancers all covered
with tattooings, and the shriekers in patched cloaks, were ranged the
curates of the Pataec gods, and the Yidonim, who put the bone of a
Salammbo |
