| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle: sound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet I knew that my
companion sat open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same
state of nervous tension in which I was myself. The shutters cut
off the least ray of light, and we waited in absolute darkness.
From outside came the occasional cry of a night-bird, and once at
our very window a long drawn catlike whine, which told us that
the cheetah was indeed at liberty. Far away we could hear the
deep tones of the parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of
an hour. How long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and
one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for
whatever might befall.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Intentions by Oscar Wilde: pass by, looks on Ottima's haggard face, and loathes her and his
own sin, and himself. Pale as the white satin of his doublet, the
melancholy king watches with dreamy treacherous eyes too loyal
Strafford pass forth to his doom, and Andrea shudders as he hears
the cousins whistle in the garden, and bids his perfect wife go
down. Yes, Browning was great. And as what will he be remembered?
As a poet? Ah, not as a poet! He will be remembered as a writer
of fiction, as the most supreme writer of fiction, it may be, that
we have ever had. His sense of dramatic situation was unrivalled,
and, if he could not answer his own problems, he could at least put
problems forth, and what more should an artist do? Considered from
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Night and Day by Virginia Woolf: "Have I never understood you, Katharine? Have I been very selfish?"
"Yes," Cassandra interposed. "You've asked her for sympathy, and she's
not sympathetic; you've wanted her to be practical, and she's not
practical. You've been selfish; you've been exacting--and so has
Katharine--but it wasn't anybody's fault."
Katharine had listened to this attempt at analysis with keen
attention. Cassandra's words seemed to rub the old blurred image of
life and freshen it so marvelously that it looked new again. She
turned to William.
"It's quite true," she said. "It was nobody's fault."
"There are many things that he'll always come to you for," Cassandra
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