| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: this than by the corresponding change in Owen Leath. The
latter, when he came in sight, had been laughing and talking
unconcernedly with Effie; but as his eye fell on Miss Viner
his expression altered as suddenly as hers.
The change, for Darrow, was less definable; but, perhaps for
that reason, it struck him as more sharply significant.
Only--just what did it signify? Owen, like Sophy Viner, had
the kind of face which seems less the stage on which
emotions move than the very stuff they work in. In moments
of excitement his odd irregular features seemed to grow
fluid, to unmake and remake themselves like the shadows of
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: They smote their right thighs to mark their sense of the scandal, and
the sleeves of their robes rose like large wings of startled birds.
Hamilcar, carried away by a spirit, continued his speech, standing on
the highest step of the altar, quivering and terrible; he raised his
arms, and the rays from the candelabrum which burned behind him passed
between his fingers like javelins of gold.
"You will lose your ships, your country seats, your chariots, your
hanging beds, and the slaves who rub your feet! The jackal will crouch
in your palaces, and the ploughshare will upturn your tombs. Nothing
will be left but the eagles' scream and a heap of ruins. Carthage,
thou wilt fall!"
Salammbo |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: in literature.
It is evident that he had each and every one of the mental gifts
and each and every one of the acquirements that are so prodigally
displayed in the Plays and Poems, and in much higher and richer
degree than any other man of his time or of any previous time.
He was a genius without a mate, a prodigy not matable. There was
only one of him; the planet could not produce two of him at
one birth, nor in one age. He could have written anything that
is in the Plays and Poems. He could have written this:
The cloud-cap'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
What is Man? |
