| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: be. I believed in Darwin, of course. I do still; but then
Darwin himself said that he wasn't sure about the soul--at least,
I think he did--and Wallace was a spiritualist; and then there
was St. George Mivart--"
Her gaze lost itself in the ethereal remoteness of the mountains.
"How beautiful! How satisfying!" she murmured. "Perhaps now I
shall really know what it is to live."
As she spoke she felt a sudden thickening of her heart-beats, and
looking up she was aware that before her stood the Spirit of
Life.
"Have you never really known what it is to live?" the Spirit of
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens: could preserve her balance for another instant, and the locksmith
was about to call out in an agony, to save her from dashing down
upon her forehead and fracturing her skull, then all of a sudden
and without the smallest notice, she would come upright and rigid
again with her eyes open, and in her countenance an expression of
defiance, sleepy but yet most obstinate, which plainly said, 'I've
never once closed 'em since I looked at you last, and I'll take my
oath of it!'
At length, after the clock had struck two, there was a sound at the
street door, as if somebody had fallen against the knocker by
accident. Miss Miggs immediately jumping up and clapping her
Barnaby Rudge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gobseck by Honore de Balzac: " ' "I cannot see any one," she cried imperiously.
" ' "But, Anastasie, I particularly wish to speak to you."
" ' "Not just now, dear," she answered in a milder tone, but with no
sign of relenting.
" ' "What nonsense! You are talking to some one," said the voice, and
in came a man who could only be the Count.
" 'The Countess gave me a glance. I saw how it was. She was thoroughly
in my power. There was a time, when I was young, and might perhaps
have been stupid enough not to protest the bill. At Pondicherry, in
1763, I let a woman off, and nicely she paid me out afterwards. I
deserved it; what call was there for me to trust her?
Gobseck |
