| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: An hour passed. Then two. The stars winked out, and the
dawn whitened. The air became warmer. The whole east,
clean of clouds, flamed opalescent from horizon to zenith,
crimson at the base, where the earth blackened against it;
at the top fading from pink to pale yellow, to green, to
light blue, to the turquoise iridescence of the desert sky.
The long, thin shadows of the early hours drew backward like
receding serpents, then suddenly the sun looked over the
shoulder of the world, and it was day.
At that moment McTeague was already eight miles away from
the camp, going steadily eastward. He was descending the
McTeague |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: one in ten, or but one in twenty, was needed continually for these labours.
Then our fellow-man, having no longer full occupation in his old fields of
labour, began to take his share in ours. He too began to cultivate the
field, to build the house, to grind the corn (or make his male slaves do
it); and the hoe, and the potter's tools, and the thatching-needle, and at
last even the grindstones which we first had picked up and smoothed to
grind the food for our children, began to pass from our hands into his.
The old, sweet life of the open fields was ours no more; we moved within
the gates, where the time passes more slowly and the world is sadder than
in the air outside; but we had our own work still, and were content.
If, indeed, we might no longer grow the food for our people, we were still
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Salome by Oscar Wilde: pendant toute la soiree. Votre beaute m'a trouble. Votre beaute
m'a terriblement trouble, et je vous ai trop regardee. Mais je ne
le ferai plus. Il ne faut regarder ni les choses ni les personnes.
Il ne faut regarder que dans les miroirs. Car les miroirs ne nous
montrent que des masques . . . Oh! Oh! du vin! j'ai soif . . .
Salome, Salome, soyons amis. Enfin, voyez . . . Qu'est-ce que je
voulais dire? Qu'est-ce que c'etait? Ah! je m'en souviens! . . .
Salome! Non, venez plus pres de moi. J'ai peur que vous ne
m'entendiez pas . . . Salome, vous connaissez mes paons blancs, mes
beaux paons blancs, qui se promenent dans le jardin entre les myrtes
et les grands cypres. Leurs becs sont dores, et les grains qu'ils
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