| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: do leave off worrying about him, papa. Very likely you won't see
much of him for a long time to come."
The look she gave me in exchange for my discreet smile had no
hidden mirth in it. Her eyes seemed hollowed, her face gone wan in
a couple of hours. We had been laughing too much. Overwrought!
Overwrought by the approach of the decisive moment. After all,
sincere, courageous, and self-reliant as she was, she must have
felt both the passion and the compunction of her resolve. The very
strength of love which had carried her up to that point must have
put her under a great moral strain, in which there might have been
a little simple remorse, too. For she was honest - and there,
'Twixt Land & Sea |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Bureaucracy by Honore de Balzac: mysterious manner, and told him that his own servant wished him to
deliver to him at once a letter of the utmost importance.
The general-secretary went up to a lamp and read a note thus worded:--
Contrary to my custom, I am waiting in your ante-chamber to see
you; you have not a moment to lose if you wish to come to terms
with
Your obedient servant,
Gobseck.
The secretary shuddered when he saw the signature, which we regret we
cannot give in fac-simile, for it would be valuable to those who like
to guess character from what may be called the physiognomy of
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Georgics by Virgil: Men revel, and, all delights of hearth and home
For exile changing, a new country seek
Beneath an alien sun. The husbandman
With hooked ploughshare turns the soil; from hence
Springs his year's labour; hence, too, he sustains
Country and cottage homestead, and from hence
His herds of cattle and deserving steers.
No respite! still the year o'erflows with fruit,
Or young of kine, or Ceres' wheaten sheaf,
With crops the furrow loads, and bursts the barns.
Winter is come: in olive-mills they bruise
Georgics |
