| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Jolly Corner by Henry James: danger of flight. He had stiffened his will against going; without
this he would have made for the stairs, and it seemed to him that,
still with his eyes closed, he would have descended them, would
have known how, straight and swiftly, to the bottom.
Well, as he had held out, here he was - still at the top, among the
more intricate upper rooms and with the gauntlet of the others, of
all the rest of the house, still to run when it should be his time
to go. He would go at his time - only at his time: didn't he go
every night very much at the same hour? He took out his watch -
there was light for that: it was scarcely a quarter past one, and
he had never withdrawn so soon. He reached his lodgings for the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: done for, and began to sing, God knows what! He got worse and worse
and worse and worse as time went on; he began to rattle and get
hoarse--just good for nothing! And this is how it happened: a little
lump, not so big as a pea, had come under his throat. It was only
necessary to prick that little swelling with a needle--Zachar
Prokofievitch taught me that; and, if you like, I'll just tell you how
it was. I went to him--"
"Shall I read another, Demyan Demyanovitch?" broke in the secretary,
who had not been reading for several minutes.
"Have you finished already? Only think how quickly! And I did not hear
a word of it! Where is it? Give it me and I'll sign it. What else have
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Red Inn by Honore de Balzac: his eyes up to me. Never shall I forget that look, full of thoughts,
presentiments, resignation, and I know not what sad, melancholy grace.
It was, as it were, a silent but intelligible last will by which a man
bequeathed his lost existence to his only friend. The night must have
been very hard, very solitary for him; and yet, perhaps, the pallor of
his face expressed a stoicism gathered from some new sense of self-
respect. Perhaps he felt that his remorse had purified him, and
believed that he had blotted out his fault by his anguish and his
shame. He now walked with a firm step, and since the previous evening
he had washed away the blood with which he was, involuntarily,
stained.
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