| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: done three years' labour for attempted rape in Australia, but nothing
certain was known regarding his antecedents. He had been up on guard half
the night, and was now taking his rest lying on his back with his arm
thrown over his face; but a slight movement could be noted in his jaw as he
slowly chewed a piece of tobacco; and occasionally when he turned it round
the mouth opened, and disclosed two rows of broken yellow stumps set in
very red gums.
The three Colonial Englishmen took no notice of him. Two, who were slowly
smoking, were of the large and powerful build, and somewhat loose set about
the shoulders, which is common among Colonial Europeans of the third
generation, whether Dutch or English, and had the placidity and general
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Middlemarch by George Eliot: at him? I thought it no harm to leave him. My man's gone afield,
and the little girl's seeing to the kettles."
Bulstrode went up. At a glance he knew that Raffles was not in
the sleep which brings revival, but in the sleep which streams
deeper and deeper into the gulf of death.
He looked round the room and saw a bottle with some brandy in it,
and the almost empty opium phial. He put the phial out of sight,
and carried the brandy-bottle down-stairs with him, locking it again
in the wine-cooler.
While breakfasting he considered whether he should ride to
Middlemarch at once, or wait for Lydgate's arrival. He decided
Middlemarch |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: childhood, but it can never compete with them successfully. Lambert's
woes had taught me many a chant of sorrow far more appealing than the
finest passages in "Werther." And, indeed, there is no possible
comparison between the pangs of a passion condemned, whether rightly
or wrongly, by every law, and the grief of a poor child pining for the
glorious sunshine, the dews of the valley, and liberty. Werther is the
slave of desire; Louis Lambert was an enslaved soul. Given equal
talent, the more pathetic sorrow, founded on desires which, being
purer, are the more genuine, must transcend the wail even of genius.
After sitting for a long time with his eyes fixed on a lime-tree in
the playground, Louis would say just a word; but that word would
Louis Lambert |
