| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: bye to your mistress! I am forgetting your valet and your groom!
Is Christophe going to carry your billets-doux for you? Do you
mean to employ the stationery you use at present? Suicidal
policy! Hearken to the wisdom of your elders!" he went on, his
bass voice growing louder at each syllable. "Either take up your
quarters in a garret, live virtuously, and wed your work, or set
about the thing in a different way."
Vautrin winked and leered in the direction of Mlle. Taillefer to
enforce his remarks by a look which recalled the late tempting
proposals by which he had sought to corrupt the student's mind.
Several days went by, and Rastignac lived in a whirl of gaiety.
Father Goriot |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lady Baltimore by Owen Wister: the silver, and the cups, and the groups of chairs near the pleasant
arbor, I watched the deserted garden whence the sunlight was slowly
departing, and it seemed to me more than ever like some empty and
charming scene in a playhouse, to which the comedians would in due time
return to repeat their delicate pantomime. But these were mental
indulgences, with which I sat playing until the sight of my interrupted
letter to Aunt Carola on the table before me brought the reality of
everything back into my thoughts; and I shook my head over Miss Eliza. I
remembered that hand of hers, lying in despondent acquiescence upon her
lap, as the old lady sat in her best dress, formally and faithfully
accepting the woman whom her nephew John had brought upon them as his
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Voice of the City by O. Henry: seeming to direct her eyes pensively toward his own
window. And then, as though she had caught his
respectful but ardent regard, she melted away, leaving
the fragrant emblems on the window-sill.
"Yes, emblems! -- he would be unworthy if be had
not understood. She had read his poem, "The Four
Roses"; it had reached her heart; and this was its
romantic answer. Of course she must know that
Ravenel, the poet, lived there across her garden. His
picture, too, she must have seen in the magazines.
The delicate, tender, modest, flattering message could
The Voice of the City |
