| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: the strictness of his life, and his untiring observance of all the
monastic rules. The prior of the monastery, hearing of his skill in
painting, ordered him to paint the principal picture in the church.
But the humble brother said plainly that he was unworthy to touch a
brush, that his was contaminated, that with toil and great sacrifice
must he first purify his spirit in order to render himself fit to
undertake such a task. He increased the rigours of monastic life for
himself as much as possible. At last, even they became insufficient,
and he retired, with the approval of the prior, into the desert, in
order to be quite alone. There he constructed himself a cell from
branches of trees, ate only uncooked roots, dragged about a stone from
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: was apparently quite unconscious of her gaze. Then, as if she could
look no longer, she leant back in her chair, and half closed her eyes.
The distance between them hurt her terribly; one thing after another
came into her mind, tempting her to assail Ralph with questions, to
force him to confide in her, and to enjoy once more his intimacy. But
she rejected every impulse, for she could not speak without doing
violence to some reserve which had grown between them, putting them a
little far from each other, so that he seemed to her dignified and
remote, like a person she no longer knew well.
"Is there anything that I could do for you?" she asked gently, and
even with courtesy, at length.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: money he had about him, and said he would go into the army
and seek the world for more.
I asked him why he would be so unkind to carry me into
Ireland, when I might suppose he could not have subsisted me
there. He took me in his arms. 'My dear,' said he, 'depend
upon it, I never designed to go to Ireland at all, much less to
have carried you thither, but came hither to be out of the
observation of the people, who had heard what I pretended to,
and withal, that nobody might ask me for money before I was
furnished to supply them.'
'But where, then,' said I, 'were we to have gone next?'
Moll Flanders |
