| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tono Bungay by H. G. Wells: maladjustment. I would lie awake in the night, asking myself the
purpose of things, reviewing my unsatisfying, ungainly home-life,
my days spent in rascal enterprise and rubbish-selling,
contrasting all I was being and doing with my adolescent
ambitions, my Wimblehurst dreams. My circumstances had an air
of finality, and I asked myself in vain why I had forced myself
into them.
VI
The end of our intolerable situation came suddenly and
unexpectedly, but in a way that I suppose was almost inevitable.
My alienated affections wandered, and I was unfaithful to Marion.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: but which is more generally and properly known by the name of
Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by
the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate
propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern
on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact,
but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and
authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles,
there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills,
which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small
brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to
repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad: The whispered sounds I caught by bending my ear
to his lips puzzled me utterly. That afternoon the
young ladies from the Rectory (one of them read
Goethe with a dictionary, and the other had strug-
gled with Dante for years), coming to see Miss
Swaffer, tried their German and Italian on him
from the doorway. They retreated, just the least
bit scared by the flood of passionate speech which,
turning on his pallet, he let out at them. They ad-
mitted that the sound was pleasant, soft, musical--
but, in conjunction with his looks perhaps, it was
Amy Foster |
