| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad: But I had no leisure to weigh the merits of the matter--
footsteps in the saloon, a heavy knock. "There's enough wind
to get under way with, sir." Here was the call of a new claim
upon my thoughts and even upon my feelings.
"Turn the hands up," I cried through the door. "I'll be on deck directly."
I was going out to make the acquaintance of my ship.
Before I left the cabin our eyes met--the eyes of the only
two strangers on board. I pointed to the recessed part where
the little campstool awaited him and laid my finger on my lips.
He made a gesture--somewhat vague--a little mysterious,
accompanied by a faint smile, as if of regret.
The Secret Sharer |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: into a run down the steep bit that ended the hill, and went with a
crash into the stile. Mrs. Morel shuddered. He picked himself up,
swearing viciously, rather pathetically, as if he thought the stile
had wanted to hurt him.
She went indoors, wondering if things were never going to alter.
She was beginning by now to realise that they would not. She seemed
so far away from her girlhood, she wondered if it were the same
person walking heavily up the back garden at the Bottoms as had run
so lightly up the breakwater at Sheerness ten years before.
"What have I to do with it?" she said to herself. "What have
I to do with all this? Even the child I am going to have!
Sons and Lovers |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Of The Nature of Things by Lucretius: That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain,
Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom.
No marvel this; since oft a bladder small,
Filled up with air, will, when of sudden burst,
Give forth a like large sound.
There's reason, too,
Why clouds make sounds, as through them blow the winds:
We see, borne down the sky, oft shapes of clouds
Rough-edged or branched many forky ways;
And 'tis the same, as when the sudden flaws
Of north-west wind through the dense forest blow,
Of The Nature of Things |
