| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert: pulled them by the cloak, cursed them as they beat their breasts, and
held out their little naked and weeping children at arm's length. The
sight of them was unmanning the Barbarians; they were an embarrassment
and a peril. Several times they were repulsed, but they came back
again; Matho made the horsemen belonging to Narr' Havas charge them
with the point of the lance; and on some Balearians shouting out to
him that they must have women, he replied: "I have none!"
Just now he was invaded by the genius of Moloch. In spite of the
rebellion of his conscience, he performed terrible deeds, imagining
that he was thus obeying the voice of a god. When he could not ravage
the fields, Matho would cast stones into them to render them sterile.
Salammbo |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: dissolute life, but he had imagined that M. G---- M----'s
interest about me was the result of his esteem and friendship for
my family; that it was in this sense he had explained the matter
to him; that what I had now told him should assuredly produce a
change in my treatment, and that he had no doubt but the accurate
detail which he should immediately transmit to the
lieutenant-general of police would bring about my liberation.
"He then enquired why I had never thought of informing my family
of what had taken place, since they had not been instrumental to
my incarceration. I satisfactorily answered this by stating my
unwillingness to cause my father pain, or to bring upon myself
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: happen, but a few seconds beforehand it should be possible to guess. It
was always from behind, walking down a corridor. Ten seconds would be
enough. In that time the world inside him could turn over. And then
suddenly, without a word uttered, without a check in his step, without the
changing of a line in his face--suddenly the camouflage would be down and
bang! would go the batteries of his hatred. Hatred would fill him like an
enormous roaring flame. And almost in the same instant bang! would go the
bullet, too late, or too early. They would have blown his brain to pieces
before they could reclaim it. The heretical thought would be unpunished,
unrepented, out of their reach for ever. They would have blown a hole in
their own perfection. To die hating them, that was freedom.
1984 |
