| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: It wasn't a bit true I had ceased to care for knowledge; little by
little my curiosity not only had begun to ache again, but had
become the familiar torment of my days and my nights. There are
doubtless people to whom torments of such an order appear hardly
more natural than the contortions of disease; but I don't after all
know why I should in this connexion so much as mention them. For
the few persons, at any rate, abnormal or not, with whom my
anecdote is concerned, literature was a game of skill, and skill
meant courage, and courage meant honour, and honour meant passion,
meant life. The stake on the table was of a special substance and
our roulette the revolving mind, but we sat round the green board
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Emma by Jane Austen: I am in no hurry. Adopt her, educate her."
"And make her like myself."
"By all means, if you can."
"Very well. I undertake the commission. You shall have a charming wife."
"She must be very lively, and have hazle eyes. I care for nothing else.
I shall go abroad for a couple of years--and when I return,
I shall come to you for my wife. Remember."
Emma was in no danger of forgetting. It was a commission to touch every
favourite feeling. Would not Harriet be the very creature described?
Hazle eyes excepted, two years more might make her all that he wished.
He might even have Harriet in his thoughts at the moment;
Emma |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: in the olive-woods near Tanagra; and there was a touch of Greek
grace in her pose and attitude. Yet she was not PETITE. She was
simply perfectly proportioned - a rare thing in an age when so many
women are either over life-size or insignificant.
Now as Lord Arthur looked at her, he was filled with the terrible
pity that is born of love. He felt that to marry her, with the
doom of murder hanging over his head, would be a betrayal like that
of Judas, a sin worse than any the Borgia had ever dreamed of.
What happiness could there be for them, when at any moment he might
be called upon to carry out the awful prophecy written in his hand?
What manner of life would be theirs while Fate still held this
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