| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Figure in the Carpet by Henry James: ordered as to make up for what it lacked. He had begun on the
spot, for one of the quarterlies, a great last word on Vereker's
writings, and this exhaustive study, the only one that would have
counted, have existed, was to turn on the new light, to utter - oh,
so quietly! - the unimagined truth. It was in other words to trace
the figure in the carpet through every convolution, to reproduce it
in every tint. The result, according to my friend, would be the
greatest literary portrait ever painted, and what he asked of me
was just to be so good as not to trouble him with questions till he
should hang up his masterpiece before me. He did me the honour to
declare that, putting aside the great sitter himself, all aloft in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: more battens, the gas jets on which were burning low, gleamed like
galaxies of little bluish stars amid a chaos of iron rods,
connecting lines of all sizes, hanging stages and canvases spread
out in space, like huge cloths hung out to dry.
"Lower away!" shouted the foreman unexpectedly.
And the prince himself had to warn the count, for a canvas was
descending. They were setting the scenery for the third act, which
was the grotto on Mount Etna. Men were busy planting masts in the
sockets, while others went and took frames which were leaning
against the walls of the stage and proceeded to lash them with
strong cords to the poles already in position. At the back of the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman by Thomas Hardy: faintly attempted, at least, what she said she had
done; and his horror at her impulse was mixed with
amazement at the strength of her affection for himself,
and at the strangeness of its quality, which had
apparently extinguished her moral sense altogether.
Unable to realize the gravity of her conduct she seemed
at last content; and he looked at her as she lay upon
his shoulder, weeping with happiness, and wondered what
obscure strain in the d'Urberville blood had led to
this aberration--if it were an aberration. There
momentarily flashed through his mind that the family
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman |
