| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: matters so that you shall lack nothing. My friend, grant me the right
to abandon you. I shall ever be your friend, though forced to conform
to the axioms of the world. You must decide."
The poor, bewildered abbe cried aloud: "Chapeloud was right when he
said that if Troubert could drag him by the feet out of his grave he
would do it! He sleeps in Chapeloud's bed!"
"There is no use in lamenting," said Madame de Listomere, "and we have
little time now left to us. How will you decide?"
Birotteau was too good and kind not to obey in a great crisis the
unreflecting impulse of the moment. Besides, his life was already in
the agony of what to him was death. He said, with a despairing look at
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: "It is most interesting," Mr. Brand continued. "I only wish
she would speak French; it would seem more in keeping.
It must be quite the style that we have heard about, that we
have read about--the style of conversation of Madame de Stael,
of Madame Recamier."
Acton also looked at Madame Munster's residence among its
hollyhocks and apple-trees. "What I should like to know,"
he said, smiling, "is just what has brought Madame Recamier
to live in that place!"
CHAPTER V
Mr. Wentworth, with his cane and his gloves in his hand,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Schoolmistress and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov: look after the horse in case of necessity, was gently snoring,
with his head on a sack of oats. Our way lay along a narrow
by-road, straight as a ruler, which lay hid like a great snake in
the tall thick rye. There was a pale light from the afterglow of
sunset; a streak of light cut its way through a narrow,
uncouth-looking cloud, which seemed sometimes like a boat and
sometimes like a man wrapped in a quilt. . . .
I had driven a mile and a half, or two miles, when against the
pale background of the evening glow there came into sight one
after another some graceful tall poplars; a river glimmered
beyond them, and a gorgeous picture suddenly, as though by
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories |
