| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: some of his friends, old gentlemen who remembered his mother--
remembered her, but said nothing about her--and several
of whom, with the gentle ladies their wives, had driven out
from town to pay their respects at the little house among
the apple-trees, in vehicles which reminded the Baroness,
who received her visitors with discriminating civility,
of the large, light, rattling barouche in which she herself had
made her journey to this neighborhood. The afternoon was waning;
in the western sky the great picture of a New England sunset,
painted in crimson and silver, was suspended from the zenith;
and the stony pastures, as Gertrude traversed them, thinking
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Lin McLean by Owen Wister: lazily to his full height from the window-sill. "I am goin' somewhere to
find boys that ain't so turruble quick stampeded by a roast turkey."
He began to lounge slowly away, serious as he had been throughout, and
they, stopping their noise short, swiftly picked up their boxes, and
followed him. Some change in the current of electricity that fed the
window disturbed its sparkling light, so that Santa Claus, with his arms
stretched out behind the departing cow-puncher seemed to be smiling more
broadly from the midst of his flickering brilliance.
On their way to turkey, the host and his guests exchanged but few
remarks. He was full of good-will, and threw off a comment or two that
would have led to conversation under almost any circumstances save these;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: created by men's selfish passions, their vices and their abominable
tyranny) from taking the shortest cut towards securing for herself
the easiest possible existence. She had even the right to go out of
existence without considering anyone's feelings or convenience since
some women's existences were made impossible by the shortsighted
baseness of men.
I looked at her, sitting before the lamp at one o'clock in the
morning, with her mature, smooth-cheeked face of masculine shape
robbed of its freshness by fatigue; at her eyes dimmed by this
senseless vigil. I looked also at Fyne; the mud was drying on him;
he was obviously tired. The weariness of solemnity. But he
Chance |
