| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: speak; the French Academie, in its modesty, having omitted to supply a
definition out of regard for the age of its forty members. Whenever a
new word comes to supply the place of an unwieldy circumlocution, its
fortune is assured; the word /lorette/ has passed into the language of
every class of society, even where the lorette herself will never gain
an entrance. It was only invented in 1840, and derived beyond a doubt
from the agglomeration of such swallows' nests about the Church of Our
Lady of Loretto. This information is for etymoligists only. Those
gentlemen would not be so often in a quandary if mediaeval writers had
only taken such pains with details of contemporary manners as we take
in these days of analysis and description.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: in the Circular Neo-Therapeutic Gymnasium before he has attained
the age of a month.
One year determines success or failure. At the end of that time
the child has, in all probability, added one more to the tombstones
that crowd the Neo-Therapeutic Cemetery; but on rare occasions
a glad procession bears back the little one to his exultant parents,
no longer a Polygon, but a Circle, at least by courtesy:
and a single instance of so blessed a result induces multitudes
of Polygonal parents to submit to similar domestic sacrifices,
which have a dissimilar issue.
Section 12. Of the Doctrine of our Priests
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: Winnie's stare had grown hard, intent, inventive.
"I can't bring him to you myself every week," she cried. "But
don't you worry, mother. I'll see to it that he don't get lost for
long."
They felt a peculiar bump; a vision of brick pillars lingered
before the rattling windows of the cab; a sudden cessation of
atrocious jolting and uproarious jingling dazed the two women.
What had happened? They sat motionless and scared in the profound
stillness, till the door came open, and a rough, strained
whispering was heard:
"Here you are!"
The Secret Agent |
