| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: and strangely troubling to suspect that perhaps he did not want to.
And my first words were prompted by just that troubled incertitude.
"What's the matter?" I asked in my ordinary tone, speaking down to the face
upturned exactly under mine.
"Cramp," it answered, no louder. Then slightly anxious, "I say,
no need to call anyone."
"I was not going to," I said.
"Are you alone on deck?"
"Yes."
I had somehow the impression that he was on the point of letting go the ladder
to swim away beyond my ken--mysterious as he came. But, for the moment,
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Vendetta by Honore de Balzac: white, soft, brilliant, light for some, lead for most,--the priest
looked about him in vain for the acolytes whose place it was to
perform that joyous function. Two of the witnesses fulfilled it for
them. The priest addressed a hasty homily to the pair on the perils of
life, on the duties they must, some day, inculcate upon their
children,--throwing in, at this point, an indirect reproach to Ginevra
on the absence of her parents; then, after uniting them before God, as
the mayor had united them before the law, he left the now married
couple.
"God bless them!" said Vergniaud, the sergeant, to the mason, when
they reached the church porch. "No two creatures were ever more fitted
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain: and--well, you know how the town was wrought up--I hadn't the pluck
to do it. It would have turned everybody against me. I felt mean,
ever so mean; ut I didn't dare; I hadn't the manliness to face
that."
Mary looked troubled, and for a while was silent. Then she said
stammeringly:
"I--I don't think it would have done for you to--to--One mustn't--
er--public opinion--one has to be so careful --so--" It was a
difficult road, and she got mired; but after a little she got
started again. "It was a great pity, but-- Why, we couldn't afford
it, Edward--we couldn't indeed. Oh, I wouldn't have had you do it
The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg |
