| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Under the Red Robe by Stanley Weyman: you--you--have just said?' she murmured. 'I cannot hear.' And
she began to fumble with the ribbon of her mask.
'Only this, Mademoiselle,' I answered gently. 'I give your
brother back his word, his parole. From this moment he is free
to go whither he pleases. Here, where we stand, four roads meet.
That to the right goes to Montauban, where you have doubtless
friends, and can lie hid for a time. Or that to the left leads
to Bordeaux, where you can take ship if you please. And in a
word, Mademoiselle,' I continued, ending a little feebly, 'I hope
that your troubles are now over.'
She turned her face to me--we had both come to a standstill--and
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: lofty and gilt, upholstered in red plush, full of electric lights
and so thoroughly warmed that even the marble tables felt tepid to
the touch. The waiter who brought me my cup of coffee bore, by
comparison with my utter isolation, the dear aspect of an intimate
friend. There, alone in a noisy crowd, I would write slowly a
letter addressed to Glasgow, of which the gist would be: There is
no cargo, and no prospect of any coming till late spring
apparently. And all the time I sat there the necessity of getting
back to the ship bore heavily on my already half-congealed spirits
- the shivering in glazed tramcars, the stumbling over the snow-
sprinkled waste ground, the vision of ships frozen in a row,
The Mirror of the Sea |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from In the Cage by Henry James: he was "the Pink 'Un." Once, once only by good luck, he had,
coinciding comically, quite miraculously, with another person also
near to her, been "Mudge." Yes, whatever he was, it was a part of
his happiness--whatever he was and probably whatever he wasn't.
And his happiness was a part--it became so little by little--of
something that, almost from the first of her being at Cocker's, had
been deeply with the girl.
CHAPTER V
This was neither more nor less than the queer extension of her
experience, the double life that, in the cage, she grew at last to
lead. As the weeks went on there she lived more and more into the
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