| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Daughter of Eve by Honore de Balzac: "Make another failure like that," said Emile Blondet, "and you'll be
immortal."
But instead of continuing in that difficult path, Nathan had fallen,
out of sheer necessity, into the powder and patches of eighteenth-
century vaudeville, costume plays, and the reproduction, scenically,
of successful novels.
Nevertheless, he passed for a great mind which had not said its last
word. He had, moreover, attempted permanent literature, having
published three novels, not to speak of several others which he kept
in press like fish in a tank. One of these three books, the first
(like that of many writers who can only make one real trip into
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Fables by Robert Louis Stevenson: he stood alone in the woods, and the gyve was loosened from his
leg.
"Well," said he, "the enchanter is now dead, and the fetter gone."
But the cries rang in his soul, and the day was like night to him.
"This has been a sore business," said he. "Let me get forth out of
the wood, and see the good that I have done to others."
He thought to leave the fetter where it lay, but when he turned to
go, his mind was otherwise. So he stooped and put the gyve in his
bosom; and the rough iron galled him as he went, and his bosom
bled.
Now when he was forth of the wood upon the highway, he met folk
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy: and you can rest till you are thoroughly well. I'll tell them at
the stoneworks that you are knocked up."
"I wonder what they are thinking at the lodgings!"
"I'll go round and explain. Perhaps you had better let me pay up,
or they'll think we've run away?"
"Yes. You'll find enough money in my pocket there."
Quite indifferent, and shutting his eyes because he could not bear
the daylight in his throbbing eye-balls, Jude seemed to doze again.
Arabella took his purse, softly left the room, and putting on her
outdoor things went off to the lodgings she and he had quitted
the evening before.
Jude the Obscure |
