| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: Everything grew very intense. It was quite dark when they
turned again. The way home was through a gap in the sandhills,
and then along a raised grass road between two dykes. The country
was black and still. From behind the sandhills came the whisper
of the sea. Paul and Miriam walked in silence. Suddenly he started.
The whole of his blood seemed to burst into flame, and he could
scarcely breathe. An enormous orange moon was staring at them
from the rim of the sandhills. He stood still, looking at it.
"Ah!" cried Miriam, when she saw it.
He remained perfectly still, staring at the immense and ruddy
moon, the only thing in the far-reaching darkness of the level.
Sons and Lovers |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Wrong Box by Stevenson & Osbourne: days of Mr Gladstone; what we may call (for the lack of an
accepted expression) a Squirradical. Having acquired years
without experience, he carried into the Radical side of politics
those noisy, after-dinner-table passions, which we are more
accustomed to connect with Toryism in its severe and senile
aspects. To the opinions of Mr Bradlaugh, in fact, he added the
temper and the sympathies of that extinct animal, the Squire; he
admired pugilism, he carried a formidable oaken staff, he was a
reverent churchman, and it was hard to know which would have more
volcanically stirred his choler--a person who should have
defended the established church, or one who should have neglected
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: on an open book. He seemed about seventeen years of age, and was
of quite extraordinary personal beauty, though evidently somewhat
effeminate. Indeed, had it not been for the dress and the closely
cropped hair, one would have said that the face with its dreamy
wistful eyes, and its delicate scarlet lips, was the face of a
girl. In manner, and especially in the treatment of the hands, the
picture reminded one of Francois Clouet's later work. The black
velvet doublet with its fantastically gilded points, and the
peacock-blue background against which it showed up so pleasantly,
and from which it gained such luminous value of colour, were quite
in Clouet's style; and the two masks of Tragedy and Comedy that
|
