| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: "How's that? How's that?" of the children playing cricket, had ceased;
so that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most
part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts and seemed
consolingly to repeat over and over again as she sat with the children
the words of some old cradle song, murmured by nature, "I am guarding
you--I am your support," but at other times suddenly and unexpectedly,
especially when her mind raised itself slightly from the task actually in
hand, had no such kindly meaning, but like a ghostly roll of drums
remorselessly beat the measure of life, made one think of the destruction
of the island and its engulfment in the sea, and warned her whose day had
slipped past in one quick doing after another that it was all ephermal as
To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: getting rather past such close work, Marner: it's time you laid by
and had some rest. You look a good deal pulled down, though you're
not an old man, _are_ you?"
"Fifty-five, as near as I can say, sir," said Silas.
"Oh, why, you may live thirty years longer--look at old Macey!
And that money on the table, after all, is but little. It won't go
far either way--whether it's put out to interest, or you were to
live on it as long as it would last: it wouldn't go far if you'd
nobody to keep but yourself, and you've had two to keep for a good
many years now."
"Eh, sir," said Silas, unaffected by anything Godfrey was saying,
Silas Marner |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: She held the brand to the ground, blowing the red coal
with her mouth at the same time; till it faintly illuminated
the sod, and revealed a small object, which turned out
to be an hourglass, though she wore a watch. She blew
long enough to show that the sand had all slipped through.
"Ah!" she said, as if surprised.
The light raised by her breath had been very fitful,
and a momentary irradiation of flesh was all that it had
disclosed of her face. That consisted of two matchless
lips and a cheek only, her head being still enveloped.
She threw away the stick, took the glass in her hand,
Return of the Native |
