| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: confidences. Miss Baker had turned back the overskirt of
her dress; a plate of cake was in her lap; from time to time
she sipped her wine with the delicacy of a white cat. The
two women were much interested in each other. Miss Baker
told Mrs. Sieppe all about Old Grannis, not forgetting the
fiction of the title and the unjust stepfather.
"He's quite a personage really," said Miss Baker.
Mrs. Sieppe led the conversation around to her children.
"Ach, Trina is sudge a goote girl," she said; "always gay,
yes, und sing from morgen to night. Und Owgooste, he is soh
smart also, yes, eh? He has der genius for machines, always
McTeague |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Art of Writing by Robert Louis Stevenson: again, there follows the peculiar greatness of the true
versifier: such as Shakespeare, Milton, and Victor Hugo,
whom I place beside them as versifier merely, not as poet.
These not only knit and knot the logical texture of the style
with all the dexterity and strength of prose; they not only
fill up the pattern of the verse with infinite variety and
sober wit; but they give us, besides, a rare and special
pleasure, by the art, comparable to that of counterpoint,
with which they follow at the same time, and now contrast,
and now combine, the double pattern of the texture and the
verse. Here the sounding line concludes; a little further
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: resulting from a very energetic dance, is not likely to diminish
the discomfort by diminishing the cause of the ailment. So far
from laughing, I reflect and enquire, when the Calabrian peasant
talks to me of his Tarantula, the Pujaud reaper of his Theridion
lugubre, the Corsican husbandman of his Malmignatte. Those Spiders
might easily deserve, at least partly, their terrible reputation.
The most powerful Spider in my district, the Black-bellied
Tarantula, will presently give us something to think about, in this
connection. It is not my business to discuss a medical point, I
interest myself especially in matters of instinct; but, as the
poison-fangs play a leading part in the huntress' manoeuvres of
The Life of the Spider |
