| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: d'Urbervilles. Tess, who used the upper chamber, heard
it and awoke. It had come from the corner step of the
staircase, which, as usual, was loosely nailed. She
saw the door of her bedroom open, and the figure of her
husband crossed the stream of moonlight with a
curiously careful tread. He was in his shirt and
trousers only, and her first flush of joy died when she
perceived that his eyes were fixed in an unnatural
stare on vacancy. When he reached the middle of the
room he stood still and murmured in tones of
indescribable sadness--
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: ashamed of her impulse and said nothing while he remarked that perhaps
what he was saying did not apply to pictures. Anyhow, said Lily,
tossing off her little insincerity, she would always go on painting,
because it interested her. Yes, said Mr Bankes, he was sure she would,
and, as they reached the end of the lawn he was asking her whether she
had difficulty in finding subjects in London when they turned and saw
the Ramsays. So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman
looking at a girl throwing a ball. That is what Mrs Ramsay tried to
tell me wearing a green shawl, and they were standing close together
watching Prue and Jasper throwing catches. And suddenly the meaning
which, for no reason at all, as perhaps they are stepping out of the
To the Lighthouse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: fellow, whose name was Ctesippus, and who came from Same. This
man, confident in his great wealth, was paying court to the wife
of Ulysses, and said to the suitors, "Hear what I have to say.
The stranger has already had as large a portion as any one else;
this is well, for it is not right nor reasonable to ill-treat
any guest of Telemachus who comes here. I will, however, make
him a present on my own account, that he may have something to
give to the bath-woman, or to some other of Ulysses' servants."
As he spoke he picked up a heifer's foot from the meat-basket in
which it lay, and threw it at Ulysses, but Ulysses turned his
head a little aside, and avoided it, smiling grimly Sardinian
The Odyssey |
