| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Vicar of Tours by Honore de Balzac: Monsieur Caron, "has sent me to come to an understanding with you."
"Well, if you will have the goodness to return to-morrow," said the
abbe, "I shall then have taken advice in the matter."
The quill-driver withdrew. The poor vicar, frightened at the
persistence with which Mademoiselle Gamard pursued him, returned to
the dining-room with his face so convulsed that everybody cried out
when they saw him: "What IS the matter, Monsieur Birotteau?"
The abbe, in despair, sat down without a word, so crushed was he by
the vague presence of approaching disaster. But after breakfast, when
his friends gathered round him before a comfortable fire, Birotteau
naively related the history of his troubles. His hearers, who were
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his
gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it
a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words--
the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating,
the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating
stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of
an impenetrable darkness.
"The other shoe went flying unto the devil-god of that river.
I thought, `By Jove! it's all over. We are too late; he has vanished--
the gift has vanished, by means of some spear, arrow, or club.
I will never hear that chap speak after all'--and my sorrow
Heart of Darkness |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hermione's Little Group of Serious Thinkers by Don Marquis: you know -- and give a whole evening to them, but
one of the girls said, "Oh let's NOT take them up.
They sound frightfully chemical, somehow!"
I said, "The question, my dear, is not whether
they are chemical or un-chemical. The question is,
Are they worldly? Or are they OTHER-Worldly?"
That is the Touchstone. One can apply it to
everything, simply EVERYTHING!"
Should teachers be mothers, for instance -- that
question came up for discussion the other evening.
And I settled the whole matter at once, with one
|
