| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: looked wonderfully beautiful with her grand ivory throat, her large
blue forget-me-not eyes, and her heavy coils of golden hair. OR
PUR they were - not that pale straw colour that nowadays usurps the
gracious name of gold, but such gold as is woven into sunbeams or
hidden in strange amber; and they gave to her face something of the
frame of a saint, with not a little of the fascination of a sinner.
She was a curious psychological study. Early in life she had
discovered the important truth that nothing looks so like innocence
as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of
them quite harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a
personality. She had more than once changed her husband; indeed,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: large part of my life, and I had hoped, whatever its deficiencies, that it
might at least stimulate other minds, perhaps more happily situated, to an
enlarged study of the question.
In 1899 I was living in Johannesburg, when, owing to ill-health, I was
ordered suddenly to spend some time at a lower level. At the end of two
months the Boer War broke out. Two days after war was proclaimed I arrived
at De Aar on my way back to the Transvaal; but Martial Law had already been
proclaimed there, and the military authorities refused to allow my return
to my home in Johannesburg and sent me to the Colony; nor was I allowed to
send any communication through, to any person, who might have extended some
care over my possessions. Some eight months after, when the British troops
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Glasses by Henry James: has consulted some of the big specialists, but she has done it, you
may be sure, in the most clandestine manner; and even if it were
supposable that they would tell you anything--which I altogether
doubt--you would have great difficulty in finding out which men
they are. Therefore leave it alone; never show her what you
suspect."
I even before he quitted me asked him to promise me this. "All
right, I promise"--but he was gloomy enough. He was a lover facing
the fact that there was no limit to the deceit his loved one was
ready to practise: it made so remarkably little difference. I
could see by what a stretch his passionate pity would from this
|