| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Silas Marner by George Eliot: and asked him if he knew where he had left that knife? Silas said,
he did not know that he had left it anywhere out of his own pocket--
but he was trembling at this strange interrogation. He was then
exhorted not to hide his sin, but to confess and repent. The knife
had been found in the bureau by the departed deacon's bedside--
found in the place where the little bag of church money had lain,
which the minister himself had seen the day before. Some hand had
removed that bag; and whose hand could it be, if not that of the man
to whom the knife belonged? For some time Silas was mute with
astonishment: then he said, "God will clear me: I know nothing
about the knife being there, or the money being gone. Search me and
Silas Marner |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic: and watched over intelligently. He can assimilate opium
enough to kill you and me and every other vertebrate
creature on the premises, without turning a hair, and he
hasn't got even fairly under way yet."
The thing was unpleasant, and the young minister turned away.
They walked together up the path toward the house.
His mind was full now of the hostile things which Celia
had said about the doctor. He had vaguely sympathized
with her then, upon no special knowledge of his own.
Now he felt that his sentiments were vehemently in accord
with hers. The doctor WAS a beast.
The Damnation of Theron Ware |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Chouans by Honore de Balzac: a few days. How he treated me!" she thought, presently.
She seated herself on the rock where the marquis had been sitting, and
silently awaited the arrival of the coach. It was one of the phenomena
of the times, and not the least of them, that this young and noble
lady should be flung by violent partisanship into the struggle of
monarchies against the spirit of the age, and be driven by the
strength of her feelings into actions of which it may almost be said
she was not conscious. In this she resembled others of her time who
were led away by an enthusiasm which was often productive of noble
deeds. Like her, many women played heroic or blameworthy parts in the
fierce struggle. The royalist cause had no emissaries so devoted and
The Chouans |
