| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad: as yet, at any rate. So much assurance staggered him.
Who could tell what there could be in it, he thought?
His regard for Captain Whalley had the tenacity of
a disinterested sentiment, and his practical instinct com-
ing to his aid, he concealed his scorn.
"I gather, then, that this is something grave."
"Very grave," Sterne assented solemnly, delighted at
having produced an effect at last. He was ready to add
some effusive protestations of regret at the "unavoida-
ble necessity," but Mr. Van Wyk cut him short--very
civilly, however.
End of the Tether |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan by Honore de Balzac: for the purpose of excitement and I may say of notoriety. I felt that
I must conquer my independence. I led a life of dissipation. To divert
my mind, to forget my real life in fictitious enjoyments I was gay, I
shone, I gave fetes, I played the princess, and I ran in debt. At home
I could forget myself in the sleep of weariness, able to rise the next
day gay, and frivolous for the world; but in that sad struggle to
escape my real life I wasted my fortune. The revolution of 1830 came;
it came at the very moment when I had met, at the end of that Arabian
Nights' life, a pure and sacred love which (I desire to be honest) I
had longed to know. Was it not natural in a woman whose heart,
repressed by many causes and accidents, was awakening at an age when a
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells: the singularity of an educated man living on this unknown little island,
and coupled with that the extraordinary nature of his luggage.
I found myself repeating the captain's question, What did he want
with the beasts? Why, too, had he pretended they were not his when I
had remarked about them at first? Then, again, in his personal attendant
there was a bizarre quality which had impressed me profoundly.
These circumstances threw a haze of mystery round the man. They laid
hold of my imagination, and hampered my tongue.
Towards midnight our talk of London died away, and we stood
side by side leaning over the bulwarks and staring dreamily
over the silent, starlit sea, each pursuing his own thoughts.
The Island of Doctor Moreau |
