| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage.
The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black
and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was
cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us--who could tell?
We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings;
we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled,
as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse.
We could not understand because we were too far and could not
remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages,
of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign--
and no memories.
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Snow Image by Nathaniel Hawthorne: corner in the midst of them, and close behind him came a band of
fearful wind instruments, sending forth a fresher discord now
that
no intervening buildings kept it from the ear. Then a redder
light disturbed the moonbeams, and a dense multitude of torches
shone along the street, concealing, by their glare, whatever
object they illuminated. The single horseman, clad in a military
dress, and bearing a drawn sword, rode onward as the leader, and,
by his fierce and variegated countenance, appeared like war
personified; the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire and
sword; the blackness of the other betokened the mourning that
The Snow Image |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Study of a Woman by Honore de Balzac: This speech caused a violent commotion in Madame de Listomere's bosom;
but Rastignac did not yet know how to analyze a woman's face by a
rapid or sidelong glance. The lips of the marquise paled, but that was
all. She rang the bell for wood, and so constrained Rastignac to rise
and take his leave.
"If that be so," said the marquise, stopping Eugene with a cold and
rigid manner, "you will find it difficult to explain, monsieur, why
your pen should, by accident, write my name. A name, written on a
letter, is not a friend's opera-hat, which you might have taken,
carelessly, on leaving a ball."
Eugene, discomfited, looked at the marquise with an air that was both
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