| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Almayer's Folly by Joseph Conrad: light in which her love was born and grew till it possessed her
whole being, she was kept firm in her unwavering resolve by the
mysterious whisperings of desire which filled her heart with
impatient longing for the darkness that would mean the end of
danger and strife, the beginning of happiness, the fulfilling of
love, the completeness of life. It had set at last! The short
tropical twilight went out before she could draw the long breath
of relief; and now the sudden darkness seemed to be full of
menacing voices calling upon her to rush headlong into the
unknown; to be true to her own impulses, to give herself up to
the passion she had evoked and shared. He was waiting! In the
Almayer's Folly |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Plutarch's Lives by A. H. Clough: light of day. Since before, they tell us, the Spartan men, out of
shame at their disasters, did not dare so much as to look their
wives in the face.
When Epaminondas restored Messene, and recalled from all quarters
the ancient citizens to inhabit it, they were not able to obstruct
the design, being not in condition of appearing in the field
against them. But it went greatly against Agesilaus in the minds
of his countrymen, when they found so large a territory, equal to
their own in compass, and for fertility the richest of all Greece,
which they had enjoyed so long, taken from them in his reign.
Therefore it was that the king broke off treaty with the Thebans,
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Man of Business by Honore de Balzac: " 'Oh, I shall be much kinder before I have done. Just imagine it,
poor M. Denisart has been worried into the jaundice! Yes, it has gone
to the liver, as it usually does with susceptible old men. It is a
pity he feels things so. I told him so myself; I said, "Be passionate,
there is no harm in that, but as for taking things to heart--draw the
line at that! It is the way to kill yourself."--Really, I would not
have expected him to take on so about it; a man that has sense enough
and experience enough to keep away as he does while he digests his
dinner--'
" 'But what is the matter?' inquired Mlle. Chocardelle.
" 'That little baggage with whom I dined has cleared out and left him!
|
