| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: "Two men," he began again, speaking with difficulty. "Two white
men--men in uniform--honourable men. I want to say--men of
honour. Are you?"
"Come! None of that," said the officer impatiently. "Let us have
that friend of yours."
"What do you think I am?" asked Almayer, fiercely.
"You are drunk, but not so drunk as not to know what you are
doing. Enough of this tomfoolery," said the officer sternly, "or
I will have you put under arrest in your own house."
"Arrest!" laughed Almayer, discordantly. "Ha! ha! ha! Arrest!
Why, I have been trying to get out of this infernal place for
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Juana by Honore de Balzac: Lagounia.
"She knew what she was doing."
"But oh! into what hands our pearl is going!"
"Say no more, or I shall seek a quarrel with that Diard."
"And that would only lead to other miseries."
Hearing these dreadful words Juana saw the happy future she had lost
by her own wrongdoing. The pure and simple years of her quiet life
would have been rewarded by a brilliant existence such as she had
fondly dreamed,--dreams which had caused her ruin. To fall from the
height of Greatness to Monsieur Diard! She wept. At times she went
nearly mad. She floated for a while between vice and religion. Vice
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: I had not the resource of simply offering them a sum of money down.
In that way I might obtain the documents without bad nights.
"Dearest lady," I exclaimed, "excuse the impatience of my tone when I
suggest that you must have forgotten the very fact (surely I communicated
it to you) which pushed me to throw myself upon your ingenuity.
The old woman won't have the documents spoken of; they are personal,
delicate, intimate, and she hasn't modern notions, God bless her!
If I should sound that note first I should certainly spoil the game.
I can arrive at the papers only by putting her off her guard,
and I can put her off her guard only by ingratiating
diplomatic practices. Hypocrisy, duplicity are my only chance.
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