| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells: I still remember very distinctly my uncle's talk,--he loved to speak
"reet Staffordshire"--his rather flabby face with the mottled
complexion that told of crude ill-regulated appetites, his clumsy
gestures--he kept emphasising his points by prodding at me with his
finger--the ill-worn, costly, grey tweed clothes, the watch chain of
plain solid gold, and soft felt hat thrust back from his head. He
tackled me first in the garden after lunch, and then tried to raise
me to enthusiasm by taking me to his potbank and showing me its
organisation, from the dusty grinding mills in which whitened men
worked and coughed, through the highly ventilated glazing room in
which strangely masked girls looked ashamed of themselves,--"They'll
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Illustrious Gaudissart by Honore de Balzac: Jenny, looked at her proudly, one hand in his waistcoat, his head at
three-quarter profile,--an attitude truly Napoleonic.
"Oh, how funny you are! what have you been eating to-night?"
Gaudissart was thirty-eight years of age, of medium height, stout and
fat like men who roll about continually in stage-coaches, with a face
as round as a pumpkin, ruddy cheeks, and regular features of the type
which sculptors of all lands adopt as a model for statues of
Abundance, Law, Force, Commerce, and the like. His protuberant stomach
swelled forth in the shape of a pear; his legs were small, but active
and vigorous. He caught Jenny up in his arms like a baby and kissed
her.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: kindly lips.
"Not actually, perhaps, at this moment. But I don't need to tell a
man of the world, like you, that such things cannot remain unseen.
And that they are, well, compromising, because of the mere fact of
the fortune."
Mills got on his feet, looked for his jacket and after getting into
it made himself heard while he looked for his hat.
"Whereas the woman herself is, so to speak, priceless."
Mr. Blunt muttered the word "Obviously."
By then we were all on our feet. The iron stove glowed no longer
and the lamp, surrounded by empty bottles and empty glasses, had
The Arrow of Gold |
