| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: all this, he seized the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly
strove to wrench it from its gripe. As now he thus vainly strove,
the jaw slipped from him; the frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and
snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft,
bit the craft completely in twain, and locked themselves fast again
in the sea, midway between the two floating wrecks. These floated
aside, the broken ends drooping, the crew at the stern-wreck clinging
to the gunwales, and striving to hold fast to the oars to lash them
across.
At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the
first to perceive the whale's intent, by the crafty upraising of his
Moby Dick |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: "I'm sure."
Miriam pondered this. She saw what he was seeking--a sort
of baptism of fire in passion, it seemed to her. She realised
that he would never be satisfied till he had it. Perhaps it was
essential to him, as to some men, to sow wild oats; and afterwards,
when he was satisfied, he would not rage with restlessness any more,
but could settle down and give her his life into her hands. Well, then,
if he must go, let him go and have his fill--something big and intense,
he called it. At any rate, when he had got it, he would not want
it--that he said himself; he would want the other thing that she
could give him. He would want to be owned, so that he could work.
Sons and Lovers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Cousin Pons by Honore de Balzac: fashions were blended with a sort of afterwaft and lingering perfume
of the coquetry of the Incroyable--with an indescribable finical
something in the folds of the garments, a certain air of stiffness and
correctness in the demeanor that smacked of the school of David, that
recalled Jacob's spindle-legged furniture.
At first sight, moreover, you set him down either for the gentleman by
birth fallen a victim to some degrading habit, or for the man of small
independent means whose expenses are calculated to such a nicety that
the breakage of a windowpane, a rent in a coat, or a visit from the
philanthropic pest who asks you for subscriptions to a charity,
absorbs the whole of a month's little surplus of pocket-money. If you
|
