| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: unconscious that he was plunging ankle-deep in snow, unconscious of
everything but trembling suspense about what was going on in the
cottage, and the effect of each alternative on his future lot. No,
not quite unconscious of everything else. Deeper down, and
half-smothered by passionate desire and dread, there was the sense
that he ought not to be waiting on these alternatives; that he ought
to accept the consequences of his deeds, own the miserable wife, and
fulfil the claims of the helpless child. But he had not moral
courage enough to contemplate that active renunciation of Nancy as
possible for him: he had only conscience and heart enough to make
him for ever uneasy under the weakness that forbade the
Silas Marner |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: some twenty by fifteen inches in area, and two inches thick; the
thin metal covers opening at the top.
Its tough cellulose pages
seemed unaffected by the myriad cycles of time they had lived
through, and I studied the queerly pigmented, brush-drawn letters
of the text-symbols unlike either the usual curved hieroglyphs
or any alphabet known to human scholarship - with a haunting,
half-aroused memory.
It came to me that this was the language
used by a captive mind I had known slightly in my dreams - a mind
from a large asteroid on which had survived much of the archaic
Shadow out of Time |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: now to be settled, and Mr. Bennet could have no hesitation in
acceding to the proposal before him. In terms of grateful
acknowledgment for the kindness of his brother, though
expressed most concisely, he then delivered on paper his perfect
approbation of all that was done, and his willingness to fulfil the
engagements that had been made for him. He had never before
supposed that, could Wickham be prevailed on to marry his
daughter, it would be done with so little inconvenience to
himself as by the present arrangement. He would scarcely be
ten pounds a year the loser by the hundred that was to be paid
them; for, what with her board and pocket allowance, and the
Pride and Prejudice |
