| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: with sobs and lamentations at the very gate of the cemetery.
How short his years and how clear his vision! What greater
reward in ambition, honour and conscience could he have hoped to
win for himself when, on the top of the Furca Pass, he bade me
look well to the end of my opening life.
Chapter III.
The devouring in a dismal forest of a luckless Lithuanian dog by
my grand-uncle Nicholas B. in company of two other military and
famished scarecrows, symbolised, to my childish imagination, the
whole horror of the retreat from Moscow and the immorality of a
conqueror's ambition. An extreme distaste for that objectionable
Some Reminiscences |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: What exquisite joy they would find in self-sacrifice! What a pang
for his mother's heart if she could not send him all that he
asked for! And this noble affection, these sacrifices made at
such terrible cost, were to serve as the ladder by which he meant
to climb to Delphine de Nucingen. A few tears, like the last
grains of incense flung upon the sacred alter fire of the hearth,
fell from his eyes. He walked up and down, and despair mingled
with his emotion. Father Goriot saw him through the half-open
door.
"What is the matter, sir?" he asked from the threshold.
"Ah! my good neighbor, I am as much a son and brother as you are
Father Goriot |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from My Antonia by Willa Cather: the dogs and owls, which were quite defenceless against them;
took possession of their comfortable houses and ate the eggs
and puppies. We felt sorry for the owls. It was always
mournful to see them come flying home at sunset and disappear
under the earth. But, after all, we felt, winged things
who would live like that must be rather degraded creatures.
The dog-town was a long way from any pond or creek.
Otto Fuchs said he had seen populous dog-towns in the desert
where there was no surface water for fifty miles; he insisted
that some of the holes must go down to water--nearly two
hundred feet, hereabouts. Antonia said she didn't believe it;
My Antonia |
