| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: "Does it need Sir Thomas More's sanction?"
"No; but one ought to marry about then."
"Ay," she answered broodingly; and she waited.
"I can't marry you," he continued slowly, "not now, because we've
no money, and they depend on me at home."
She sat half-guessing what was coming.
"But I want to marry now---"
"You want to marry?" she repeated.
"A woman--you know what I mean."
She was silent.
"Now, at last, I must," he said.
Sons and Lovers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: through the events of an unrelated existence, following
faithfully too the traced way of an inexplicable impulse.
It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of
contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at
times the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no
possible explanation. Indulgence--as somebody said--is the most
intelligent of all the virtues. I venture to think that it is
one of the least common, if not the most uncommon of all. I
would not imply by this that men are foolish--or even most men.
Far from it. The barber and the priest, backed by the whole
opinion of the village, condemned justly the conduct of the
Some Reminiscences |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dreams by Olive Schreiner: trees glinted, and the waves of the sea were silvery, the woman walked
alone to the forest. It was dark there; the moonlight fell only in little
flecks on the dead leaves under her feet, and the branches were knotted
tight overhead. Farther in it got darker, not even a fleck of moonlight
shone. Then she came to the shrine; she knelt down before it and prayed;
there came no answer. Then she uncovered her breast; with a sharp two-
edged stone that lay there she wounded it. The drops dripped slowly down
on to the stone, and a voice cried, "What do you seek?"
She answered, "There is a man; I hold him nearer than anything. I would
give him the best of all blessings."
The voice said, "What is it?"
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