| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather: about it a great deal, and I've quite decided.
I never used to understand how women did things
like that, but I know now. It's because they can't
be at the mercy of the man they love any longer."
Alexander flushed angrily. "So it's better
to be at the mercy of a man you don't love?"
"Under such circumstances, infinitely!"
There was a flash in her eyes that made
Alexander's fall. He got up and went over to
the window, threw it open, and leaned out.
He heard Hilda moving about behind him.
Alexander's Bridge |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas: of the magistrate, who seemed rather to implore mercy than
to pronounce punishment, -- all returned with a stunning
force to his memory. He cried out, and staggered against the
wall like a drunken man, then he hurried to the opening that
led from the abbe's cell to his own, and said, "I must be
alone, to think over all this."
When he regained his dungeon, he threw himself on his bed,
where the turnkey found him in the evening visit, sitting
with fixed gaze and contracted features, dumb and motionless
as a statue. During these hours of profound meditation,
which to him had seemed only minutes, he had formed a
The Count of Monte Cristo |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: the old and the nine chapters of "Almayer's Folly" went with me
to the Victoria Dock, whence in a few days we started for Rouen.
I won't go so far as saying that the engaging of a man fated
never to cross the Western Ocean was the absolute cause of the
Franco-Canadian Transport Company's failure to achieve even a
single passage. It might have been that of course; but the
obvious, gross obstacle was clearly the want of money. Four
hundred and sixty bunks for emigrants were put together in the
'tween decks by industrious carpenters while we lay in the
Victoria Dock, but never an emigrant turned up in Rouen--of
which, being a humane person, I confess I was glad. Some
Some Reminiscences |
