| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: but more perfectly authenticated, experience of his stepson,
Robert Stevenson. Word reached Thomas that his mother was
unwell, and he prepared to leave for Broughty on the morrow.
It was between two and three in the morning, and the early
northern daylight was already clear, when he awoke and beheld
the curtains at the bed-foot drawn aside and his mother appear
in the interval, smile upon him for a moment, and then vanish.
The sequel is stereo-type; he took the time by his watch, and
arrived at Broughty to learn it was the very moment of her
death. The incident is at least curious in having happened to
such a person - as the tale is being told of him. In all
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Soul of a Bishop by H. G. Wells: the healing wounds of Ireland, and feuds and frantic folly broke
out at every point of the social and political edifice. And then
a bomb burst at Sarajevo that silenced all this tumult. The
unstable polity of Europe heeled over like a ship that founders.
Through the swiftest, tensest week in history Europe capsized
into war.
(6)
The first effect of the war upon the mind of the bishop, as
upon most imaginative minds, was to steady and exalt it.
Trivialities and exasperations seemed swept out of existence. Men
lifted up their eyes from disputes that had seemed incurable and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: determined not to overlook it. And O, if you knew--if
you could only half know how I loved him--how anxious I
was to have him--and how wrung I was between caring so
much for him and my wish to be fair to him!"
Tess was so shaken that she could get no further, and
sank a helpless thing into a chair.
"Well, well; what's done can't be undone! I'm sure I
don't know why children o' my bringing forth should all
be bigger simpletons than other people's--not to know
better than to blab such a thing as that, when he
couldn't ha' found it out till too late!" Here Mrs
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
