| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: fell upon each other like wolves in a pit; in which lusts were
raging fires, and men were fuel, and humanity was festering and
stewing and wallowing in its own corruption. Into this wild-beast
tangle these men had been born without their consent, they had taken
part in it because they could not help it; that they were in jail
was no disgrace to them, for the game had never been fair, the dice
were loaded. They were swindlers and thieves of pennies and dimes,
and they had been trapped and put out of the way by the swindlers
and thieves of millions of dollars.
To most of this Jurgis tried not to listen. They frightened him
with their savage mockery; and all the while his heart was far away,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton: then?" But the remembrance of Count Olenski's only
letter to his wife was too present to him. He paused
again, and then took another plunge.
"And the person?"--
"The emissary? The emissary," Madame Olenska
rejoined, still smiling, "might, for all I care, have left
already; but he has insisted on waiting till this evening
. . . in case . . . on the chance . . ."
"And you came out here to think the chance over?"
"I came out to get a breath of air. The hotel's too
stifling. I'm taking the afternoon train back to Portsmouth."
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: scorn.
The penetrating quality of these tones which I had not heard for so
many, many days made my eyes run full of tears. I guessed easily
that the appeal was addressed to the atrocious Therese. The
speaker was concealed from me by the high back of the sofa, but her
apprehension was perfectly justified. For was it not I who had
turned back Therese the pious, the insatiable, coming downstairs in
her nightgown to torment her sister some more? Mere surprise at
Dona Rita's presence in the house was enough to paralyze me; but I
was also overcome by an enormous sense of relief, by the assurance
of security for her and for myself. I didn't even ask myself how
The Arrow of Gold |
