| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: "know", and mainly for the reason that it wasn't in him to tell any
one. That would have been impossible, for nothing but the
amusement of a cold world would have waited on it. Since, however,
a mysterious fate had opened his mouth betimes, in spite of him, he
would count that a compensation and profit by it to the utmost.
That the right person SHOULD know tempered the asperity of his
secret more even than his shyness had permitted him to imagine; and
May Bartram was clearly right, because--well, because there she
was. Her knowledge simply settled it; he would have been sure
enough by this time had she been wrong. There was that in his
situation, no doubt, that disposed him too much to see her as a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another
form: the scarlet letter endowed with life! The mother herself
-- as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into her brain
that all her conceptions assumed its form -- had carefully
wrought out the similitude, lavishing many hours of morbid
ingenuity to create an analogy between the object of her
affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture. But, in
truth, Pearl was the one as well as the other; and only in
consequence of that identity had Hester contrived so perfectly to
represent the scarlet letter in her appearance.
The Scarlet Letter |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: up and dress right now. What time is it?"
"Now don't you do anything of the sort," he urged persuasively.
"It isn't five o'clock; it'll be dark for nearly an hour yet.
Just you turn over, and have another nap. He's all right.
I put him on the sofa, with the buffalo robe round him.
You'll find him there, safe and sound, when it's time
for white folks to get up. You know how it breaks you up
all day, not to get your full sleep."
"I don't care if it makes me look as old as the everlasting hills,"
she said. "Can't you understand, Soulsby? The thing
worries me--gets on my nerves. I couldn't close an eye,
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
