| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from To-morrow by Joseph Conrad: startle the old man." He lowered his voice as
though he had known her for years. "I dropped
into a barber's on my way, to get a twopenny
shave, and they told me there he was something of
a character. The old man has been a character all
his life."
Captain Hagberd, daunted by the allusion to his
clothing, had retreated inside, taking his spade
with him; and the two at the gate, startled by the
unexpected slamming of the door, heard the bolts
being shot, the snapping of the lock, and the echo
To-morrow |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Ferragus by Honore de Balzac: hear your voice, you let yourself be seen, you--in short, you permit
our eyes to admire you--"
"Ah!" she said, interrupting him, "that is one of my griefs. Yes, I
wish it were possible for a married woman to live secluded with her
husband, as a mistress lives with her lover, for then--"
"Then why were you, two hours ago, on foot, disguised, in the rue
Soly?"
"The rue Soly, where is that?"
And her pure voice gave no sign of any emotion; no feature of her face
quivered; she did not blush; she remained calm.
"What! you did not go up to the second floor of a house in the rue des
Ferragus |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: or dress a stone (which perhaps never quite fits the spot it was intended
for, and has to be thrown aside!); or who carve away all their lives to
produce a corbel of some reform in sexual relations, in the end to find it
break under the chisel; who, out of many failures attain, perhaps, to no
success, or but to one, and that so small and set so much in the shade that
no eye will ever see it; for such as these, it is perhaps not so easy to
labour without growing weary. Nevertheless, it is through the labours of
these myriad toilers, each working in her own minute sphere, with her own
small outlook, and out of endless failures and miscarriages, that at last
the enwidened and beautified relations of woman to life must rise, if they
are ever to come.
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