| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ivanhoe by Walter Scott: train, and conducted, with courtesy, indeed, but
still without consulting her inclination, to a distant
apartment. The same alarming distinction was
conferred on Rebecca, in spite of her father's entreaties,
who offered even money, in this extremity
of distress, that she might be permitted to abide
with him. ``Base unbeliever,'' answered one of his
guards, ``when thou hast seen thy lair, thou wilt
not wish thy daughter to partake it.'' And, without
farther discussion, the old Jew was forcibly dragged
off in a different direction from the other prisoners.
Ivanhoe |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: level, and amusing me with entertaining discourse. Yet he was a
decent man enough in the main, I daresay; and if he had kept his
distance, I never would have hated him. As it was, it was almost
impossible to help it, for he not only bothered me with the
infliction of his own presence, but he kept me from the enjoyment
of more agreeable society.
One night, however, at a ball, he had been more than usually
tormenting, and my patience was quite exhausted. It appeared as if
the whole evening was fated to be insupportable: I had just had
one dance with an empty-headed coxcomb, and then Mr. Boarham had
come upon me and seemed determined to cling to me for the rest of
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: bottom of a black abyss from which no unaided woman could hope to
scramble out.
She swayed forward, and made a fresh start blindly, with an awful
dread of falling down; but at the end of a few steps, unexpectedly,
she found a sensation of support, of security. Raising her head,
she saw a man's face peering closely at her veil. Comrade Ossipon
was not afraid of strange women, and no feeling of false delicacy
could prevent him from striking an acquaintance with a woman
apparently very much intoxicated. Comrade Ossipon was interested
in women. He held up this one between his two large palms, peering
at her in a business-like way till he heard her say faintly "Mr
The Secret Agent |
