| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad: authentic memories may serve worthily that spirit of piety toward
all things human which sanctions the conceptions of a writer of
tales, and the emotions of the man reviewing his own experience.
II
As I have said, I was unpacking my luggage after a journey from
London into Ukraine. The MS. of "Almayer's Folly"--my companion
already for some three years or more, and then in the ninth
chapter of its age--was deposited unostentatiously on the
writing-table placed between two windows. It didn't occur to me
to put it away in the drawer the table was fitted with, but my
eye was attracted by the good form of the same drawer's brass
A Personal Record |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie: voice was rather deep and unctuous. He placed a wooden hand in
mine and said:
"This is a pleasure, Mr. Hastings." Then, turning to his wife:
"Emily dearest, I think that cushion is a little damp."
She beamed fondly on him, as he substituted another with every
demonstration of the tenderest care. Strange infatuation of an
otherwise sensible woman!
With the presence of Mr. Inglethorp, a sense of constraint and
veiled hostility seemed to settle down upon the company. Miss
Howard, in particular, took no pains to conceal her feelings.
Mrs. Inglethorp, however, seemed to notice nothing unusual. Her
The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: nodding to her question, with a book beneath his arm, in his yellow
slippers, that she was suspected; and that all this desire of hers to
give, to help, was vanity. For her own self-satisfaction was it that she
wished so instinctively to help, to give, that people might say of her,
"O Mrs Ramsay! dear Mrs Ramsay ... Mrs Ramsay, of course!" and need her
and send for her and admire her? Was it not secretly this that she
wanted, and therefore when Mr Carmichael shrank away from her, as he did
at this moment, making off to some corner where he did acrostics
endlessly, she did not feel merely snubbed back in her instinct, but made
aware of the pettiness of some part of her, and of human relations, how
flawed they are, how despicable, how self-seeking, at their best. Shabby
To the Lighthouse |
