| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from McTeague by Frank Norris: "Didunt always have to work for your living, though, did
you, when you ate offa gold dishes?" Maria didn't answer,
except by putting her chin in the air and shutting her eyes,
as though to say she knew a long story about that if she had
a mind to talk. All Marcus's efforts to draw her out on the
subject were unavailing. She only responded by movements of
her head.
"Can't always start her going," Marcus told his cousin.
"What does she do, though, when you ask her about her name?"
"Oh, sure," said Marcus, who had forgotten. "Say, Maria,
what's your name?"
McTeague |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Odyssey by Homer: comfortable there, for I shall be away, and my mother will not
see you; she does not often show herself even to the suitors,
but sits at her loom weaving in an upper chamber, out of their
way; but I can tell you a man whose house you can go to--I mean
Eurymachus the son of Polybus, who is held in the highest
estimation by every one in Ithaca. He is much the best man and
the most persistent wooer, of all those who are paying court to
my mother and trying to take Ulysses' place. Jove, however, in
heaven alone knows whether or no they will come to a bad end
before the marriage takes place."
As he was speaking a bird flew by upon his right hand--a hawk,
The Odyssey |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: looking she could hear them. Minta went on eating her sandwich,
annoyingly, while he spoke something violent, abusing her, in a mutter
so as not to wake the children, the two little boys. He was withered,
drawn; she flamboyant, careless. For things had worked loose after the
first year or so; the marriage had turned out rather badly.
And this, Lily thought, taking the green paint on her brush, this
making up scenes about them, is what we call "knowing" people,
"thinking" of them, "being fond" of them! Not a word of it was true;
she had made it up; but it was what she knew them by all the same. She
went on tunnelling her way into her picture, into the past.
Another time, Paul said he "played chess in coffee-houses." She had
To the Lighthouse |
