| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: Her father was to her the type of all men. And George Coppard,
proud in his bearing, handsome, and rather bitter; who preferred
theology in reading, and who drew near in sympathy only to one man,
the Apostle Paul; who was harsh in government, and in familiarity ironic;
who ignored all sensuous pleasure:--he was very different from
the miner. Gertrude herself was rather contemptuous of dancing;
she had not the slightest inclination towards that accomplishment,
and had never learned even a Roger de Coverley. She was puritan,
like her father, high-minded, and really stern. Therefore the dusky,
golden softness of this man's sensuous flame of life, that flowed off
his flesh like the flame from a candle, not baffled and gripped into
Sons and Lovers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a
more natural and far more palpable origin--to the severe and
long-continued illness--indeed to the evidently approaching dis-
solution--of a tenderly beloved sister--his sole companion for
long years--his last and only relative on earth. "Her decease,"
he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave
him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race
of the Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was
she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the
apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared.
I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with
The Fall of the House of Usher |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Troll Garden and Selected Stories by Willa Cather: tepid bath of domestic life; but Flavia's discernment was deeper.
This must be a refuge where the shrinking soul, the sensitive
brain, should be unconstrained; where the caprice of fancy should
outweigh the civil code, if necessary. She considered that this
much Arthur owed her; for she, in her turn, had made concessions.
Flavia had, indeed, quite an equipment of epigrams to the effect
that our century creates the iron genii which evolve its fairy
tales: but the fact that her husband's name was annually painted
upon some ten thousand threshing machines in reality contributed
very little to her happiness.
Arthur Hamilton was born and had spent his boyhood in the
The Troll Garden and Selected Stories |
