| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of the West by O. Henry: vanished from his native haunts. But had he just cause to do so? There
is no evidence for or against. But there is something higher than
evidence; there is the grand, eternal belief in woman's goodness, in
her steadfastness against temptation, in her loyalty even in the face
of proffered riches.
"I picture to myself the rash lover, wandering, self-tortured, about
the world. I picture his gradual descent, and, finally, his complete
despair when he realises that he has lost the most precious gift life
had to offer him. Then his withdrawal from the world of sorrow and the
subsequent derangement of his faculties becomes intelligible.
"But what do I see on the other hand? A lonely woman fading away as
Heart of the West |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: falling where another had fallen, and so setting up an echo which
chimed in the air and made it full of vibrations.
But it would be a mistake, she thought, thinking how they walked off
together, arm in arm, past the greenhouse, to simplify their
relationship. It was no monotony of bliss--she with her impulses and
quicknesses; he with his shudders and glooms. Oh, no. The bedroom door
would slam violently early in the morning. He would start from the
table in a temper. He would whizz his plate through the window. Then
all through the house there would be a sense of doors slamming and
blinds fluttering, as if a gusty wind were blowing and people scudded
about trying in a hasty way to fasten hatches and make things ship-
To the Lighthouse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men in a
flooded world. "I have dreamed it again," said he.
"Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor
coffin can be thine?"
"And who are hearsed that die on the sea?"
"But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two
hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by
mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in
America."
"Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee:--a hearse and its plumes
floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers. Ha!
Moby Dick |
