| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: from the footfall, William Bankes, so that though her brush quivered, she
did not, as she would have done had it been Mr Tansley, Paul Rayley,
Minta Doyle, or practically anybody else, turn her canvas upon the grass,
but let it stand. William Bankes stood beside her.
They had rooms in the village, and so, walking in, walking out, parting
late on door-mats, had said little things about the soup, about the
children, about one thing and another which made them allies; so that when
he stood beside her now in his judicial way (he was old enough to be her
father too, a botanist, a widower, smelling of soap, very scrupulous and
clean) she just stood there. He just stood there. Her shoes were
excellent, he observed. They allowed the toes their natural expansion.
To the Lighthouse |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: Indians about, - iron stars, each ray a rusty thorn an inch and a
half long, - stick through moccasins into feet, - cripple 'em on
the spot, and give 'em lockjaw in a day or two.
At the same time he let off one of those big words which lie at the
bottom of the best man's vocabulary, but perhaps never turn up in
his life, - just as every man's hair MAY stand on end, but in most
men it never does.
After he had got calm, he pulled out a sheet or two of manuscript,
together with a smaller scrap, on which, as he said, he had just
been writing an introduction or prelude to the main performance. A
certain suspicion had come into my mind that the Professor was not
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems by Oscar Wilde: And loose the arched cord; aye, even now upon the quest
I hear her hurrying feet, - awake, awake,
Thou laggard in love's battle! once at least
Let me drink deep of passion's wine, and slake
My parched being with the nectarous feast
Which even gods affect! O come, Love, come,
Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure home.'
Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees
Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air
Grew conscious of a god, and the grey seas
Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare
|
