| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth;
She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth;
She framed the love, and yet she foil'd the framing;
She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning.
Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?
Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.
VIII.
If music and sweet poetry agree,
As they must needs, the sister and the brother,
Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,
Because thou lovest the one, and I the other.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: the desperate bitterness of his feelings that it surprised even
himself. He asked himself who spoke, and, after looking slowly
round as if expecting to see somebody, turned again his eyes
towards the sea.
"You say that because you do not understand the meaning of my
words," she said sadly. "Between you and my mother there never
was any love. When I returned to Sambir I found the place which
I thought would be a peaceful refuge for my heart, filled with
weariness and hatred--and mutual contempt. I have listened to
your voice and to her voice. Then I saw that you could not
understand me; for was I not part of that woman? Of her who was
Almayer's Folly |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Maitre Cornelius by Honore de Balzac: epoch; understanding each other marvellously; they discarded and
resumed with equal facility, the one his conscience, the other his
religion; they loved the same Virgin, one by conviction, the other by
policy; in short, if we may believe the jealous tales of Olivier de
Daim and Tristan, the king went to the house of the Fleming for those
diversions with which King Louis XI. diverted himself. History has
taken care to transmit to our knowledge the licentious tastes of a
monarch who was not averse to debauchery. The old Fleming found, no
doubt, both pleasure and profit in lending himself to the capricious
pleasures of his royal client.
Cornelius had now lived nine years in the city of Tours. During those
|
