| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Lock and Key Library by Julian Hawthorne, Ed.: "It is certainly wonderful."
"It must have been hair like this which crowned the infamous head
of Lucrezia Borgia," he said, bitterly. "She, too, had golden
hair; but hers must have been of paler tint, like her nature."
He resumed his seat, and, fixing his eyes upon the lock, continued:
"She was one of Ottilie's friends--dear friends, they called each
other,--which meant that they kissed each other profusely, and told
each other all their secrets, or as much as the lying nature of the
sex permitted and suggested. It is, of course, impossible for me
to disentangle my present knowledge from my past impressions so as
to give you a clear description of what I then thought of Agalma.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: set his internal economy in a blaze. He could not get over the
disloyalty of it. This man, who would not work at the usual hard
tasks which society sets to its humbler members, had exercised his
secret industry with an indefatigable devotion. There was in Mr
Verloc a fund of loyalty. He had been loyal to his employers, to
the cause of social stability, - and to his affections too - as
became apparent when, after standing the tumbler in the sink, he
turned about, saying:
"If I hadn't thought of you I would have taken the bullying brute
by the throat and rammed his head into the fireplace. I'd have
been more than a match for that pink-faced, smooth-shaved - "
The Secret Agent |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Dynamiter by Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Van De Grift Stevenson: appearance, I believe, but from some emanation of her soul,
that I recoiled in a kind of fainting terror; as we hear of
plants that blight and snakes that fascinate, the woman
shocked and daunted me. But I was of a brave nature; trod
the weakness down; and forcing my way through the slaves, who
fell back before me in embarrassment, as though in the
presence of rival mistresses, I asked, in imperious tones:
'Who is this person?'
A slave girl, to whom I had been kind, whispered in my ear to
have a care, for that was Madam Mendizabal; but the name was
new to me.
|
