| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: which my mind was thus recalled. With an effort I replied, "Yes, I
want to ask you about that room--the room in which I slept, and--
and the murder which was committed there." In spite of all that I
could do, my voice sank almost to a whisper as I concluded, and I
was trembling from head to foot.
"Who told you that a murder was committed there?" Something in my
face as he asked the question made him add quickly, "Never mind.
You are right. That is the room in which Hugh Mervyn was murdered
by his wife. I was surprised at your question, for I did not know
that anyone but my brothers and myself were aware of the fact. The
subject is never mentioned: it is closely connected with one
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: had nothing in it that was not noble and intellectual.
It was not that mere physical admiration of beauty that is born
of the senses and that dies when the senses tire. It was such
love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and Winckelmann,
and Shakespeare himself. Yes, Basil could have saved him.
But it was too late now. The past could always be annihilated.
Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future
was inevitable. There were passions in him that would find
their terrible outlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their
evil real.
He took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: up everything but the instant need to hurry to Rapallo, on the
Genoese shore, where Vereker was making a stay. I wrote him a
letter which was to await him at Aden - I besought him to relieve
my suspense. That he had found my letter was indicated by a
telegram which, reaching me after weary days and in the absence of
any answer to my laconic dispatch to him at Bombay, was evidently
intended as a reply to both communications. Those few words were
in familiar French, the French of the day, which Covick often made
use of to show he wasn't a prig. It had for some persons the
opposite effect, but his message may fairly be paraphrased. "Have
patience; I want to see, as it breaks on you, the face you'll
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