| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Pierrette by Honore de Balzac: the life that suited him. He scolded Pierrette as he used to scold his
clerks; he would call her when at play, and compel her to study; he
made her repeat her lessons, and became himself the almost savage
master of the poor child. Sylvie, on her side, considered it a duty to
teach Pierrette the little that she knew herself about women's work.
Neither Rogron nor his sister had the slightest softness in their
natures. Their narrow minds, which found real pleasure in worrying the
poor child, passed insensibly from outward kindness to extreme
severity. This severity was necessitated, they believed, by what they
called the self-will of the child, which had not been broken when
young and was very obstinate. Her masters were ignorant how to give to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf: two opposite things at the same time; that's what you feel, was one;
that's what I feel, was the other, and then they fought together in her
mind, as now. It is so beautiful, so exciting, this love, that I
tremble on the verge of it, and offer, quite out of my own habit, to
look for a brooch on a beach; also it is the stupidest, the most
barbaric of human passions, and turns a nice young man with a profile
like a gem's (Paul's was exquisite) into a bully with a crowbar (he
was swaggering, he was insolent) in the Mile End Road. Yet, she said to
herself, from the dawn of time odes have been sung to love; wreaths
heaped and roses; and if you asked nine people out of ten they would
say they wanted nothing but this--love; while the women, judging from
To the Lighthouse |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Father Sergius by Leo Tolstoy: decided to give him some bread instead. She returned to the
cupboard, but suddenly blushed at the thought of having grudged
the ten-kopek piece, and telling Lukerya to cut a slice of bread,
went upstairs again to fetch it. 'It serves you right,' she said
to herself. 'You must now give twice over.'
She gave both the bread and the money to the pilgrim, and when
doing so--far from being proud of her generosity--she excused
herself for giving so little. The man had such an imposing
appearance.
Though he had tramped two hundred versts as a beggar, though he
was tattered and had grown thin and weatherbeaten, though he had
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