| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: hurt her further. I foresaw the particular praise she would mostly
incur--she would be invariably "interesting." She would charm with
her pathos more even than she had charmed with her pleasure. For
herself above all she was fixed for ever, rescued from all change
and ransomed from all doubt. Her old certainties, her old vanities
were justified and sanctified, and in the darkness that had closed
upon her one object remained clear. That object, as unfading as a
mosaic mask, was fortunately the loveliest she could possibly look
upon. The greatest blessing of all was of course that Dawling
thought so. Her future was ruled with the straightest line, and so
for that matter was his. There were two facts to which before I
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: pined over something. She grew cross and wearisome; snapping at
and teasing Catherine continually, at the imminent risk of
exhausting her limited patience. We excused her, to a certain
extent, on the plea of ill-health: she was dwindling and fading
before our eyes. But one day, when she had been peculiarly
wayward, rejecting her breakfast, complaining that the servants did
not do what she told them; that the mistress would allow her to be
nothing in the house, and Edgar neglected her; that she had caught
a cold with the doors being left open, and we let the parlour fire
go out on purpose to vex her, with a hundred yet more frivolous
accusations, Mrs. Linton peremptorily insisted that she should get
Wuthering Heights |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scenes from a Courtesan's Life by Honore de Balzac: eager and comprehensive glance from the ground floor to the attics. He
saw and noted every passer-by. God Himself is not more clear-seeing as
to the means and ends of His creatures than this man in observing the
slightest differences in the medley of things and people. Armed with
hope, as the last of the Horatii was armed with his sword, he expected
help. To anybody but this Machiavelli of the hulks, this hope would
have seemed so absolutely impossible to realize that he would have
gone on mechanically, as all guilty men do. Not one of them ever
dreams of resistance when he finds himself in the position to which
justice and the Paris police bring suspected persons, especially those
who, like Collin and Lucien, are in solitary confinement.
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