| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: Only before thou goest, swear by thy faith,
That, if thou canst not compass my desire,
Thou wilt return my prisoner back again;
And that shall be sufficient warrant for me.
VILLIERS.
To that condition I agree, my Lord,
And will unfainedly perform the same.
[Exit.]
SALISBURY.
Farewell, Villiers.--
Thus once i mean to try a French man's faith.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Muse of the Department by Honore de Balzac: night, after leaving General Montcornet, whose hotel is but a few
yards from mine. We had come away together from the Quartermaster-
General's, where we had played rather high at /bouillotte/. Suddenly,
at the corner of a narrow high-street, two strangers, or rather, two
demons, rushed upon me and flung a large cloak round my head and arms.
I yelled out, as you may suppose, like a dog that is thrashed, but the
cloth smothered my voice, and I was lifted into a chaise with
dexterous rapidity. When my two companions released me from the cloak,
I heard these dreadful words spoken by a woman, in bad French:
" ' "If you cry out, or if you attempt to escape, if you make the very
least suspicious demonstration, the gentleman opposite to you will
The Muse of the Department |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: reparation that he had appointed this meeting; that he hoped
I would not carry things to extremity, which might be not only
too great a loss to him, but might be the ruin of his business
and shop, in which case I might have the satisfaction of
repaying an injury with an injury ten times greater; but that I
would then get nothing, whereas he was willing to do me any
justice that was in his power, without putting himself or me
to the trouble or charge of a suit at law.
I told him I was glad to hear him talk so much more like a man
of sense than he did before; that it was true, acknowledgment
in most cases of affronts was counted reparation sufficient;
Moll Flanders |
