| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: them a last long look, but no palest light broke.
CHAPTER VI
He stayed away, after this, for a year; he visited the depths of
Asia, spending himself on scenes of romantic interest, of
superlative sanctity; but what was present to him everywhere was
that for a man who had known what HE had known the world was vulgar
and vain. The state of mind in which he had lived for so many
years shone out to him, in reflexion, as a light that coloured and
refined, a light beside which the glow of the East was garish cheap
and thin. The terrible truth was that he had lost--with everything
else--a distinction as well the things he saw couldn't help being
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: shall be long in forgetting. That look was quite enough for me;
I knew Miss Raymond to be Mrs. Herbert; as for Mrs. Beaumont
she had quite gone out of my head. She went into the house,
and I watched it till four o'clock, when she came out, and then
I followed her. It was a long chase, and I had to be very
careful to keep a long way in the background, and yet not lose
sight of the woman. She took me down to the Strand, and then
to Westminster, and then up St. James's Street, and along
Piccadilly. I felt queerish when I saw her turn up Ashley
Street; the thought that Mrs. Herbert was Mrs. Beaumont came
into my mind, but it seemed too impossible to be true. I
The Great God Pan |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: to keep the book back and go on with it in November at his leisure.
I do not know if this will come in time; if it doesn't, of course
things will go on in the way proposed. The 40 pounds, or, as I
prefer to put it, the 1000 francs, has been such a piercing sun-ray
as my whole grey life is gilt withal. On the back of it I can
endure. If these good days of LONGMAN and the CENTURY only last,
it will be a very green world, this that we dwell in and that
philosophers miscall. I have no taste for that philosophy; give me
large sums paid on the receipt of the MS. and copyright reserved,
and what do I care about the non-beent? Only I know it can't last.
The devil always has an imp or two in every house, and my imps are
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