| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: two clumsy legs among the trees, walking with noiseless footsteps
parallel with my course, and perhaps thirty yards away from me.
The head and upper part of the body were hidden by a tangle of creeper.
I stopped abruptly, hoping the creature did not see me.
The feet stopped as I did. So nervous was I that I controlled
an impulse to headlong flight with the utmost difficulty.
Then looking hard, I distinguished through the interlacing network
the head and body of the brute I had seen drinking. He moved his head.
There was an emerald flash in his eyes as he glanced at me from
the shadow of the trees, a half-luminous colour that vanished as
he turned his head again. He was motionless for a moment, and then
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sons of the Soil by Honore de Balzac: of nothingness! As to praise, a single word sufficed him, doubly and
trebly uttered: "Charming!" was the positive of his admiration.
"Charming, charming!" made you feel you were safe; but after
"Charming, charming, charming!" the ladder might be discarded, for the
heaven of perfection was attained.
[*] "Croute," "crouton," and "croute-au-pot," untranslatable, and
without equivalent in English. A "croute" is the slang term for a
man behind the age.--Tr.
The tabellion,--he called himself "tabellion," petty notary, and
keeper of notes (making fun of his calling in order to seem above it),
--the tabellion was on terms of spoken gallantry with Madame Soudry,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: "very exceedingly obliged. Your solicitude for my daughter is
truly paternal, and for a young man and a stranger very singular
and exemplary: and it is very kind withal to come to the relief
of my insufficiency and inexperience, and concern yourself
so much in that which concerns you not."
"You misconceive the knight, noble baron," said the friar.
"He urges not his reason in the shape of a preconceived intent,
but in that of a subsequent extenuation. True, he has done
the lady Matilda great wrong----"
"How, great wrong?" said the baron. "What do you mean by great wrong?
Would you have had her married to a wild fly-by-night, that accident
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