| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad
Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favourite
of Usher's more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there
is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could
have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my
friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and
I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated
the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental
disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of
the folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by
the wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: informed, passed through the neighbourhood of Staningley, and
having desired to be set down as near the Hall as possible, I had
nothing to do but to sit with folded arms and speculate upon the
coming hour.
It was a clear, frosty morning. The very fact of sitting exalted
aloft, surveying the snowy landscape and sweet sunny sky, inhaling
the pure, bracing air, and crunching away over the crisp frozen
snow, was exhilarating enough in itself; but add to this the idea
of to what goal I was hastening, and whom I expected to meet, and
you may have some faint conception of my frame of mind at the time
- only a faint one, though: for my heart swelled with unspeakable
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: cruelty towards Mr. Wickham. I know not in what manner,
under what form of falsehood he had imposed on you; but his
success is not perhaps to be wondered at, ignorant as you
previously were of everything concerning either. Detection
could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in your
inclination.
"You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last
night; but I was not then master enough of myself to know what
could or ought to be revealed. For the truth of everything here
related, I can appeal more particularly to the testimony of
Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our near relationship and
Pride and Prejudice |
