| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Girl with the Golden Eyes by Honore de Balzac: come, let there be all the pleasures of life in our love. Besides, I
will implore, I will weep and cry out and defend myself; perhaps I
shall be saved."
"Whom will your implore?" he asked.
"Silence!" said Paquita. "If I obtain mercy it will perhaps be on
account of my discretion."
"Give me my robe," said Henri, insidiously.
"No, no!" she answered quickly, "be what you are, one of those angels
whom I have been taught to hate, and in whom I only saw ogres, whilst
you are what is fairest under the skies," she said, caressing Henri's
hair. "You do not know how silly I am. I have learned nothing. Since I
 The Girl with the Golden Eyes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: Wildeve stared. Venn looked coolly towards Wildeve, and,
without a word being spoken, he deliberately sat himself
down where Christian had been seated, thrust his hand into
his pocket, drew out a sovereign, and laid it on the stone.
"You have been watching us from behind that bush?"
said Wildeve.
The reddleman nodded. "Down with your stake," he said.
"Or haven't you pluck enough to go on?"
Now, gambling is a species of amusement which is much more
easily begun with full pockets than left off with the same;
and though Wildeve in a cooler temper might have prudently
 Return of the Native |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen: these he seemed in his usual genial spirits. The valet, indeed,
said he thought his master appeared a little excited when he
came home, but confessed that the alteration in his manner was
very slight, hardly noticeable, indeed. It seemed hopeless to
seek for any clue, and the suggestion that Lord Argentine had
been suddenly attacked by acute suicidal mania was generally
accepted.
It was otherwise, however, when within three weeks,
three more gentlemen, one of them a nobleman, and the two
others men of good position and ample means, perished miserably
in the almost precisely the same manner. Lord Swanleigh was
 The Great God Pan |