| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: this side of life.
"I'm afraid I've been absent-minded," she began, remembering how often
William had brought this charge against her.
"You have a good deal to make you absent-minded," he replied.
"Yes," she replied, flushing. "No," she contradicted herself. "Nothing
particular, I mean. But I was thinking about plants. I was enjoying
myself. In fact, I've seldom enjoyed an afternoon more. But I want to
hear what you've settled, if you don't mind telling me."
"Oh, it's all settled," he replied. "I'm going to this infernal
cottage to write a worthless book."
"How I envy you," she replied, with the utmost sincerity.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: should be gone and the earth have become a vacant desolation.
While I was feeling these things, I was groping,
without knowing it, toward an understanding of what the
spell is which people find in the Alps, and in no other
mountains--that strange, deep, nameless influence, which,
once felt, cannot be forgotten--once felt, leaves always
behind it a restless longing to feel it again--a longing
which is like homesickness; a grieving, haunting yearning
which will plead, implore, and persecute till it has its will.
I met dozens of people, imaginative and unimaginative,
cultivated and uncultivated, who had come from far countries
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: caught sight of two bright eyes staring out of a corner. Thinking it
was a wild cat, or some such animal, I redoubled my haste, when suddenly
a voice near the eyes began first to mutter, and then to send up a
succession of awful yells.
"Hastily I lit another match, and perceived that the eyes belonged to an
old woman, wrapped up in a greasy leather garment. Taking her by the
arm, I dragged her out, for she could not, or would not, come by
herself, and the stench was overpowering me. Such a sight as she was--a
bag of bones, covered over with black, shrivelled parchment. The only
white thing about her was her wool, and she seemed to be pretty well
dead except for her eyes and her voice. She thought that I was a devil
Long Odds |
