| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: He draped himself grotesquely in his toweling bathrobe and a pink and white
couch-cover, and sat lumpishly in a wing-chair. The bedroom was uncanny in its
half-light, which turned the curtains to lurking robbers, the dressing-table
to a turreted castle. It smelled of cosmetics, of linen, of sleep. He napped
and woke, napped and woke, a hundred times. He heard her move and sigh in
slumber; he wondered if there wasn't some officious brisk thing he could do
for her, and before he could quite form the thought he was asleep, racked and
aching. The night was infinite. When dawn came and the waiting seemed at an
end, he fell asleep, and was vexed to have been caught off his guard, to have
been aroused by Verona's entrance and her agitated "Oh, what is it, Dad?"
His wife was awake, her face sallow and lifeless in the morning light, but now
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie: two pages together round the edge with some gum off an envelope.
I carried the magazine carelessly stuffed into the pocket of my
ulster.
"At Holyhead I tried to get into a carriage with people that
looked all right, but in a queer way there seemed always to be a
crowd round me shoving and pushing me just the way I didn't want
to go. There was something uncanny and frightening about it. In
the end I found myself in a carriage with Mrs. Vandemeyer after
all. I went out into the corridor, but all the other carriages
were full, so I had to go back and sit down. I consoled myself
with the thought that there were other people in the
Secret Adversary |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: which was guiding my steps towards the house with the old garden,
where for years no guest other than myself had ever dined. Mere
gratitude does not gnaw at one's interior economy in that
particular way. Hunger might; but I was not feeling particularly
hungry for Jacobus's food.
On that occasion, too, the girl refused to come to the table.
My exasperation grew. The old woman cast malicious glances at me.
I said suddenly to Jacobus: "Here! Put some chicken and salad on
that plate." He obeyed without raising his eyes. I carried it
with a knife and fork and a serviette out on the verandah. The
garden was one mass of gloom, like a cemetery of flowers buried in
'Twixt Land & Sea |
