| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde: Or had it been simply his own imagination that had made him
see a look of evil where there had been a look of joy?
Surely a painted canvas could not alter? The thing was absurd.
It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day. It would make
him smile.
And, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing!
First in the dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn,
he had seen the touch of cruelty round the warped lips.
He almost dreaded his valet leaving the room. He knew that
when he was alone he would have to examine the portrait.
He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee and cigarettes
The Picture of Dorian Gray |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: the bosom of Catherine Lescaut,--a model called the Beautiful Nut-
girl; he will see it rise and fall with the movement of her breathing.
Yet--I wish I could be sure--"
"Go to Asia, then," said Porbus hastily, fancying he saw some
hesitation in the old man's eye.
Porbus made a few steps towards the door of the room. At this moment
Gillette and Nicolas Poussin reached the entrance of the house. As the
young girl was about to enter, she dropped the arm of her lover and
shrank back as if overcome by a presentiment. "What am I doing here?"
she said to Poussin, in a deep voice, looking at him fixedly.
"Gillette, I leave you mistress of your actions; I will obey your
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Dreams & Dust by Don Marquis: This is another day--are its eyes blurred
With maudlin grief for any wasted past?
A thousand thousand failures shall not daunt!
Let dust clasp dust; death, death--I am alive!
And out of all the dust and death of mine
Old selves I dare to lift a singing heart
And living faith; my spirit dares drink deep
Of the red mirth mantling in the cup of morn.
APRIL SONG
FLEET across the grasses
Flash the feet of Spring,
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