| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: the thought occurred to her he passed out of sight behind a
pyramidal yew, and at the same moment her attention was
distracted by the approach of the gardener, attended by the
bearded pepper-and-salt figure of the boiler-maker from
Dorchester.
The encounter with this authority led to such far-reaching issues
that they resulted in his finding it expedient to ignore his
train, and beguiled Mary into spending the remainder of the
morning in absorbed confabulation among the greenhouses. She was
startled to find, when the colloquy ended, that it was nearly
luncheon-time, and she half expected, as she hurried back to the
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: this is my leg, I'm real, I'm solid, I'm alive! Don't you like THIS?'
She twisted herself round and pressed her bosom against him. He could feel
her breasts, ripe yet firm, through her overalls. Her body seemed to be
pouring some of its youth and vigour into his.
'Yes, I like that,' he said.
'Then stop talking about dying. And now listen, dear, we've got to fix
up about the next time we meet. We may as well go back to the place in
the wood. We've given it a good long rest. But you must get there by a
different way this time. I've got it all planned out. You take the
train--but look, I'll draw it out for you.'
And in her practical way she scraped together a small square of dust,
1984 |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: each in its order and held it up to the light. This gave me a
maddening month, in the course of which several things took place.
One of these, the last, I may as well immediately mention, was that
I acted on Vereker's advice: I renounced my ridiculous attempt. I
could really make nothing of the business; it proved a dead loss.
After all I had always, as he had himself noted, liked him; and
what now occurred was simply that my new intelligence and vain
preoccupation damaged my liking. I not only failed to run a
general intention to earth, I found myself missing the subordinate
intentions I had formerly enjoyed. His books didn't even remain
the charming things they had been for me; the exasperation of my
|
