| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: by the sound, was entirely taken from you.
Otto is, as you say, not a thing to extend my public on. It is
queer and a little, little bit free; and some of the parties are
immoral; and the whole thing is not a romance, nor yet a comedy;
nor yet a romantic comedy; but a kind of preparation of some of the
elements of all three in a glass jar. I think it is not without
merit, but I am not always on the level of my argument, and some
parts are false, and much of the rest is thin; it is more a triumph
for myself than anything else; for I see, beyond it, better stuff.
I have nine chapters ready, or almost ready, for press. My feeling
would be to get it placed anywhere for as much as could be got for
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: life too easy, and men ripen like medlars in the straw. If that fellow
is really clever he can lead us a pretty dance. He has already formed
companies of light infantry who oppose our troops and neutralize the
efforts of the government. If we burn a royalist village he burns two
of ours. He can hold an immense tract of country and force us to
spread out our men at the very moment when we want them on one spot.
Oh, he knows what he is about."
"He is cutting his country's throat," said Gerard in a loud voice,
interrupting the captain.
"Then," said the /emigre/, "if his death would deliver the nation, why
don't you catch him and shoot him?"
The Chouans |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: some rice himself, for all the women about the house had
disappeared; he did not know where. Almayer did not seem to
care, and, after he finished eating, he sat on the table swinging
his legs and staring at the river as if lost in thought.
After some time he got up and went to the door of a room on the
right of the verandah. That was the office. The office of
Lingard and Co. He very seldom went in there. There was no
business now, and he did not want an office. The door was
locked, and he stood biting his lower lip, trying to think of the
place where the key could be. Suddenly he remembered: in the
women's room hung upon a nail. He went over to the doorway where
Almayer's Folly |
