| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: Very slight; but I, staring at the narrator after the manner of all
simple souls, noticed it; the twitch of a pain which surely must
have been mental. There was also a suggestion of effort before he
went on: "I suppose you know how he got hold of her?" in a tone of
ease which was astonishingly ill-assumed for such a worldly, self-
controlled, drawing-room person.
Mills changed his attitude to look at him fixedly for a moment.
Then he leaned back in his chair and with interest - I don't mean
curiosity, I mean interest: "Does anybody know besides the two
parties concerned?" he asked, with something as it were renewed (or
was it refreshed?) in his unmoved quietness. "I ask because one
The Arrow of Gold |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott: wild fury of the lion mingled with the dignity and courage of
that king of the forest!"
He remained an instant musing with his eyes fixed on the ground,
and then proceeded--"But Heaven, that knows our imperfect nature,
accepts of our imperfect obedience, and hath delayed, though not
averted, the bloody end of thy daring life. The destroying angel
hath stood still, as of old by the threshing-floor of Araunah the
Jebusite, and the blade is drawn in his hand, by which, at no
distant date, Richard, the lion-hearted, shall be as low as the
meanest peasant."
"Must it, then, be so soon?" said Richard. "Yet, even so be it.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: with the Chevalier. The two elderly men considered that the pride of a
d'Esgrignon was a sufficient safeguard against anything unbefitting;
as for a dishonorable action, no one in the house imagined that a
d'Esgrignon could be guilty of it. HONOR, the great principle of
Monarchy, was planted firm like a beacon in the hearts of the family;
it lighted up the least action, it kindled the least thought of a
d'Esgrignon. "A d'Esgrignon ought not to permit himself to do such and
such a thing; he bears a name which pledges him to make a future
worthy of the past"--a noble teaching which should have been
sufficient in itself to keep alive the tradition of noblesse--had
been, as it were, the burden of Victurnien's cradle song. He heard
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