| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tales of Unrest by Joseph Conrad: bungling creature that had come so near to spoiling his life. "Yes;
I've been tried more than any man ought to be," he went on with
righteous bitterness. "It was unfair. What possessed you to? . . .
What possessed you? . . . Write such a . . . After five years of
perfect happiness! 'Pon my word, no one would believe. . . . Didn't
you feel you couldn't? Because you couldn't . . . it was
impossible--you know. Wasn't it? Think. Wasn't it?"
"It was impossible," she whispered, obediently.
This submissive assent given with such readiness did not soothe him,
did not elate him; it gave him, inexplicably, that sense of terror we
experience when in the midst of conditions we had learned to think
Tales of Unrest |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: ashes of the fire. Peter Halket bent forward, and he saw the two words the
stranger had written.
The stranger said: "Say to him: 'Though you should seek to make that name
immortal in this land; and should write it in gold dust, and set it with
diamonds, and cement it with human blood, shed from the Zambezi to the sea,
yet--." The stranger passed his foot over the words; Peter Halket looked
down, and he saw only a bed of smooth white ashes where the name had been.
The stranger said: "And if he should curse yet further, and say, 'There is
not one man nor woman in South Africa I cannot buy with my money! When I
have the Transvaal, I shall buy God Almighty Himself, if I care to!'
"Then say to him this one thing only, 'Thy money perish with thee!' and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Black Beauty by Anna Sewell: with a young thing like you." I said no more.
In the afternoon, when she went out, Merrylegs told me all about it.
"The thing is this," said Merrylegs. "Ginger has a bad habit
of biting and snapping; that is why they call her Ginger,
and when she was in the loose box she used to snap very much.
One day she bit James in the arm and made it bleed,
and so Miss Flora and Miss Jessie, who are very fond of me,
were afraid to come into the stable. They used to bring me
nice things to eat, an apple or a carrot, or a piece of bread,
but after Ginger stood in that box they dared not come,
and I missed them very much. I hope they will now come again,
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