| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: have spared him that doubt. To him his word was the echo of his mind,
and Gabrielle's little speech caused him infinite pain. He had come
with his heart full, fearing some cloud upon his daylight, and he met
a doubt. His joy was extinguished; back into his desert he plunged, no
longer finding there the flowers with which he had embellished it.
With that prescience of sorrows which characterizes the angel charged
to soften them--who is, no doubt, the Charity of heaven--Gabrielle
instantly divined the pain she had caused. She was so vividly aware of
her fault that she prayed for the power of God to lay bare her soul to
Etienne, for she knew the cruel pang a reproach or a stern look was
capable of causing; and she artlessly betrayed to him these clouds as
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: walls like an angry wave, it flowed over the blue skies, over the
yellow sands, over the sunshine of landscapes, and over the pretty
pathos of ragged innocence and of meek starvation. It swallowed up
the delicious idyll in a boat and the mutilated immortality of famous
bas-reliefs. It flowed from outside--it rose higher, in a destructive
silence. And, above it, the woman of marble, composed and blind on
the high pedestal, seemed to ward off the devouring night with a
cluster of lights.
He watched the rising tide of impenetrable gloom with impatience, as
if anxious for the coming of a darkness black enough to conceal a
shameful surrender. It came nearer. The cluster of lights went out.
Tales of Unrest |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In the South Seas by Robert Louis Stevenson: the heads to Moipu. It may be fancied how the feast broke up; but
it is notable that the guests were honourably suffered to retire.
These passed back through Taahauku in extreme disorder; a little
after the valley began to be overrun with shouting and triumphing
braves; and a letter of warning coming at the same time to Mr.
Stewart, he and his Chinamen took refuge with the Protestant
missionary in Atuona. That night the store was gutted, and the
bodies cast in a pit and covered with leaves. Three days later the
schooner had come in; and things appearing quieter, Mr. Stewart and
the captain landed in Taahauku to compute the damage and to view
the grave, which was already indicated by the stench. While they
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