| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: gone further than he thought because he was startled beyond measure
by a fiendish uproar. He had never heard anything so pitilessly
strident in his life. The witches had started a fierce quarrel
about something or other. Whatever its origin they were now only
abusing each other violently, without arguments; their senile
screams expressed nothing but wicked anger and ferocious dismay.
The gipsy girl's black eyes flew from one to the other. Never
before had Byrne felt himself so removed from fellowship with human
beings. Before he had really time to understand the subject of the
quarrel, the girl jumped up rattling her castanets loudly. A
silence fell. She came up to the table and bending over, her eyes
Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: LUCETTA .
P.S.--I was unable to keep my appointment to meet you for a
moment or two in passing through Casterbridge the other day.
My plans were altered by a family event, which it will
surprise you to hear of.
Henchard had already heard that High-Place Hall was being
prepared for a tenant. He said with a puzzled air to the
first person he encountered, "Who is coming to live at the
Hall?"
"A lady of the name of Templeman, I believe, sir," said his
informant.
The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: the washing.
"Good-evening, Mrs McNab," she would say.
She had a pleasant way with her. The girls all liked her. But, dear,
many things had changed since then (she shut the drawer); many families
had lost their dearest. So she was dead; and Mr Andrew killed; and
Miss Prue dead too, they said, with her first baby; but everyone had
lost some one these years. Prices had gone up shamefully, and didn't
come down again neither. She could well remember her in her grey
cloak.
"Good-evening, Mrs McNab," she said, and told cook to keep a plate of
milk soup for her--quite thought she wanted it, carrying that heavy
To the Lighthouse |
