| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Bronte Sisters: 'Mrs. Huntingdon, I must leave you to-morrow.'
'To-morrow!' I repeated. 'I do not ask the cause.'
'You know it then, and you can be so calm!' said he, surveying me
with profound astonishment, not unmingled with a kind of resentful
bitterness, as it appeared to me.
'I have so long been aware of - ' I paused in time, and added, 'of
my husband's character, that nothing shocks me.'
'But this - how long have you been aware of this?' demanded he,
laying his clenched hand on the table beside him, and looking me
keenly and fixedly in the face.
I felt like a criminal.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: smiled, nodded, and greeted me, was it displeasing to you? Did you not
feel yourself honoured in your daughter?
Mother. Go on with your reproaches.
Clara (with emotion). Then, when he passed more frequently, and we felt
sure that it was on my account that he came this way, did you not remark
it yourself with secret joy? Did you call me away when I stood behind the
window-pane and awaited him?
Mother. Could I imagine that it would go so far?
Clara (with faltering voice, and repressed tears). And then, one evening,
when, enveloped in his mantle, he surprised us as we sat at our lamp, who
busied herself in receiving him, while I remained, lost in astonishment, as
Egmont |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Hero of Our Time by M.Y. Lermontov: not agreed, I should have thrown myself upon his
neck; but, after an interval of silence, he rose
from his place, extended his hand to the captain,
and said very gravely:
"Very well, I agree!"
It would be difficult to describe the enthusiasm
of that honourable company.
I returned home, agitated by two different feel-
ings. The first was sorrow.
"Why do they all hate me?" I thought --
"why? Have I affronted anyone? No. Can it
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