| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Adam Bede by George Eliot: had had some reason for doing so. In our times of bitter
suffering there are almost always these pauses, when our
consciousness is benumbed to everything but some trivial
perception or sensation. It is as if semi-idiocy came to give us
rest from the memory and the dread which refuse to leave us in our
sleep.
Carroll, coming back, recalled Adam to the sense of his burden.
He was to go into the study immediately. "I can't think what that
strange person's come about," the butler added, from mere
incontinence of remark, as he preceded Adam to the door, "he's
gone i' the dining-room. And master looks unaccountable--as if he
Adam Bede |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: Mrs. Dorset turned back slowly; perhaps she wanted time to steady
her muscles; at any rate, they were still under perfect control
when, dropping once more into her seat behind the tea-table, she
remarked to Miss Bart with a faint touch of irony: "I suppose I
ought to say good morning."
If it was a cue, Lily was ready to take it, though with only the
vaguest sense of what was expected of her in return. There was
something unnerving in the contemplation of Mrs. Dorset's
composure, and she had to force the light tone in which she
answered: "I tried to see you this morning, but you were not yet
up.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from All's Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare: enough. As for you, interpreter, you must seem very politic. But
couch, ho! here he comes; to beguile two hours in a sleep, and
then to return and swear the lies he forges.
[Enter PAROLLES.]
PAROLLES.
Ten o'clock. Within these three hours 'twill be time enough to go
home. What shall I say I have done? It must be a very plausive
invention that carries it ;they begin to smoke me: and disgraces
have of late knocked too often at my door. I find my tongue is
too foolhardy; but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it, and
of his creatures, not daring the reports of my tongue.
|
