| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor: ideas into your two heads, but I must say it! THAT was where I
did wrong--wrong to her and to me,--in waiting! I had no right to
spoil the best of our lives; I ought to have gone boldly, in broad
day, to her father's house, taken her by the hand, and led her
forth to be my wife. Boys, if either of you comes to love a woman
truly, and she to love you, and there is no reason why God (I don't
say man) should put you asunder, do as I ought to have done, not as
I did! And, maybe, this advice is the best legacy I can leave
you."
"But, father," said David, speaking for both, "we have never
thought of marrying."
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: refuse forgiveness to those two feminine failings in her; for the
lines that came out in her forehead whenever her face was not in
repose, like her upward glances (that pathetic trick of manner), told
unmistakably of unhappiness, of a passion that had all but cost her
her life. A woman, sitting in the great, silent salon, a woman cut off
from the rest of the world in this remote little valley, alone, with
the memories of her brilliant, happy, and impassioned youth, of
continual gaiety and homage paid on all sides, now replaced by the
horrors of the void--was there not something in the sight to strike
awe that deepened with reflection? Consciousness of her own value
lurked in her smile. She was neither wife nor mother, she was an
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Some Reminiscences by Joseph Conrad: boyish feeling of coming home from school when he muffled me up
next morning in an enormous bear-skin travelling-coat and took
his seat protectively by my side. The sledge was a very small
one and it looked utterly insignificant, almost like a toy behind
the four big bays harnessed two and two. We three, counting the
coachman, filled it completely. He was a young fellow with clear
blue eyes; the high collar of his livery fur coat framed his
cheery countenance and stood all round level with the top of his
head.
"Now, Joseph," my companion addressed him, "do you think we shall
manage to get home before six?" His answer was that we would
Some Reminiscences |
