| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lord Arthur Savile's Crime, etc. by Oscar Wilde: 'Comfort,' said Mr. Podgers, 'and modern improvements, and hot
water laid on in every bedroom. Your Grace is quite right.
Comfort is the only thing our civilisation can give us.
'You have told the Duchess's character admirably, Mr. Podgers, and
now you must tell Lady Flora's'; and in answer to a nod from the
smiling hostess, a tall girl, with sandy Scotch hair, and high
shoulder-blades, stepped awkwardly from behind the sofa, and held
out a long, bony hand with spatulate fingers.
'Ah, a pianist! I see,' said Mr. Podgers, 'an excellent pianist,
but perhaps hardly a musician. Very reserved, very honest, and
with a great love of animals.'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: screaming `Murder!' like a lot of lunatics, and broke into the cuddy.
And the ship running for her life, touch and go all the time, any minute
her last in a sea fit to turn your hair gray only a-looking at it.
I understand that the skipper, too, started raving like the rest of them.
The man had been deprived of sleep for more than a week, and to have
this sprung on him at the height of a furious gale nearly drove him
out of his mind. I wonder they didn't fling me overboard after
getting the carcass of their precious shipmate out of my fingers.
They had rather a job to separate us, I've been told. A sufficiently
fierce story to make an old judge and a respectable jury sit up a bit.
The first thing I heard when I came to myself was the maddening
The Secret Sharer |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Aspern Papers by Henry James: with only those words, though I should have liked immensely to add,
"For heaven's sake meet me tonight in the garden!"
VIII
As it turned out the precaution had not been needed,
for three hours later, just as I had finished my dinner,
Miss Bordereau's niece appeared, unannounced, in the open
doorway of the room in which my simple repasts were served.
I remember well that I felt no surprise at seeing her;
which is not a proof that I did not believe in her timidity.
It was immense, but in a case in which there was a particular
reason for boldness it never would have prevented her from
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