| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy: the door, and listened. Every breath of wind had ceased with the
decline of day, but the rain had resumed the steady dripping of
the night before. Grace might have stood there five minutes when
she fancied she heard that old sound, a cough, at no great
distance; and it was presently repeated. If it were
Winterborne's, he must be near her; why, then, had he not visited
her?
A horrid misgiving that he could not visit her took possession of
Grace, and she looked up anxiously for the lantern, which was
hanging above her head. To light it and go in the direction of
the sound would be the obvious way to solve the dread problem; but
The Woodlanders |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Malbone: An Oldport Romance by Thomas Wentworth Higginson: talk; he had heard men talk about them, wittily or wickedly, at
the clubs; he had perceived that a good many of them wished to
marry him, and yet, after all, he knew no more of them than of
the rearing of humming-birds or orchids,--dainty, tropical
things which he allowed his gardener to raise, he keeping his
hands off, and only paying the bills. Whether there was in
existence a class of women who were both useful and
refined,--any intermediate type between the butterfly and the
drudge,--was a question which he had sometimes asked himself,
without having the materials to construct a reply.
With imagination thus touched and heart unfilled, this man had
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson by Robert Louis Stevenson: hear news of me. I have a great talent for compliment, accompanied
by a hateful, even a diabolic frankness.
Delighted to hear I have a chance of seeing you and Mrs. Doyle;
Mrs. Stevenson bids me say (what is too true) that our rations are
often spare. Are you Great Eaters? Please reply.
As to ways and means, here is what you will have to do. Leave San
Francisco by the down mail, get off at Samoa, and twelve days or a
fortnight later, you can continue your journey to Auckland per
Upolu, which will give you a look at Tonga and possibly Fiji by the
way. Make this a FIRST PART OF YOUR PLANS. A fortnight, even of
Vailima diet, could kill nobody.
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