| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: "You will let me know when you wish to go," he said.
"But I should like to stay----"
"That is another matter!"
"Stay, that was badly rolled," she cried, seizing on a cigar
and devouring all that Armand's lips had touched.
"Do you smoke?"
"Oh, what would I not do to please you?"
"Very well. Go, madame."
"I will obey you," she answered, with tears in her eyes.
"You must be blindfolded; you must not see a glimpse of the
way."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fantastic Fables by Ambrose Bierce: I explain it, lest it mislead."
"Then am I to infer," said his Questioner, "that YOU are not
fallible?"
"You are to infer that I am not pneumophagous."
The Thrift of Strength
A WEAK Man going down-hill met a Strong Man going up, and said:
"I take this direction because it requires less exertion, not from
choice. I pray you, sir, assist me to regain the summit."
"Gladly," said the Strong Man, his face illuminated with the glory
of his thought. "I have always considered my strength a sacred
gift in trust for my fellow-men. I will take you along with me.
Fantastic Fables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: pay; and from supping in the wolves' den, there is but a step
to hunting with the pack. And here, as I am on the chapter
of his degradation, I shall say all I mean to say about its
darkest expression, and be done with it for good. Some
charitable critics see no more than a JEU D'ESPRIT, a
graceful and trifling exercise of the imagination, in the
grimy ballad of Fat Peg (GROSSE MARGOT). I am not able to
follow these gentlemen to this polite extreme. Out of all
Villon's works that ballad stands forth in flaring reality,
gross and ghastly, as a thing written in a contraction of
disgust. M. Longnon shows us more and more clearly at every
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