| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: machine which solved all the difficulties involved in the problem of
capital punishment. Convicts and prisoners from the hulks forthwith
investigated this contrivance, standing as it did on the monarchical
borderland of the old system and the frontier of modern legislation;
they instantly gave it the name of l'Abbaye de Monte-a-Regret. They
looked at the angle formed by the steel blade, and described its
action as repeating (faucher); and when it is remembered that the
hulks are called the meadow (le pre), philologists must admire the
inventiveness of these horrible vocables, as Charles Nodier would have
said.
The high antiquity of this kind of slang is also noteworthy. A tenth
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tarzan the Untamed by Edgar Rice Burroughs: the direction of this sound although she could not that of the
guns, for the origin of the former was much closer. The lion
was up wind and so could not have caught her scent as yet,
though he might be approaching to investigate the light of
the fire which could doubtless be seen for a considerable
distance.
For another fear-filled hour the girl sat straining her eyes
and ears out into the black void beyond her little island of
light. During all that time the lion did not roar again; but
there was constantly the sensation that it was creeping upon
her. Again and again she would start and turn to peer into
Tarzan the Untamed |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: and truth and peace.
As to my sea sobriety, that is quite properly certified under the
sign-manual of several trustworthy shipmasters of some standing
in their time. I seem to hear your polite murmur that "Surely
this might have been taken for granted." Well, no. It might not
have been. That August academical body, the Marine Department of
the Board of Trade, takes nothing for granted in the granting of
its learned degrees. By its regulations issued under the first
Merchant Shipping Act, the very word SOBER must be written, or a
whole sackful, a ton, a mountain of the most enthusiastic
appreciation will avail you nothing. The door of the examination
A Personal Record |
