| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: Towards evening the mate and boatswain begged the master of our
ship to let them cut away the fore-mast, which he was very
unwilling to do; but the boatswain protesting to him that if he did
not the ship would founder, he consented; and when they had cut
away the fore-mast, the main-mast stood so loose, and shook the
ship so much, they were obliged to cut that away also, and make a
clear deck.
Any one may judge what a condition I must be in at all this, who
was but a young sailor, and who had been in such a fright before at
but a little. But if I can express at this distance the thoughts I
had about me at that time, I was in tenfold more horror of mind
Robinson Crusoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: sympathy for her father's dreams; but the savage ravings of her
mother chanced to strike a responsive chord, deep down somewhere
in her despairing heart; and she dreamed dreams of her own with
the persistent absorption of a captive thinking of liberty within
the walls of his prison cell. With the coming of Dain she found
the road to freedom by obeying the voice of the new-born
impulses, and with surprised joy she thought she could read in
his eyes the answer to all the questionings of her heart. She
understood now the reason and the aim of life; and in the
triumphant unveiling of that mystery she threw away disdainfully
her past with its sad thoughts, its bitter feelings, and its
Almayer's Folly |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: and presently said:--
"Ah! Madame de Mortsauf is dead; your poor brother has, no doubt, gone
to Clochegourde."
"Are you aware, monsieur," resumed the marquise, turning to Eugene,
"that what you have just said is a great impertinence?"
"If I did not know the strictness of your principles," he answered,
naively, "I should think that you wished either to give me ideas which
I deny myself, or else to tear a secret from me. But perhaps you are
only amusing yourself with me."
The marquise smiled. That smile annoyed Eugene.
"Madame," he said, "can you still believe in an offence I have not
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