| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Within the Tides by Joseph Conrad: who has got a headache and is gone to lie down."
He shook gently Renouard's arm. "Yes, for all of us! One may
meditate on life endlessly, one may even have a poor opinion of it
- but the fact remains that we have only one life to live. And it
is short. Think of that, my young friend."
He released Renouard's arm and stepped out of the shade opening his
parasol. It was clear that there was something more in his mind
than mere anxiety about the date of his lectures for fashionable
audiences. What did the man mean by his confounded platitudes? To
Renouard, scared by Luiz in the morning (for he felt that nothing
could be more fatal than to have his deception unveiled otherwise
 Within the Tides |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: speak. I don't know what's the reason, but these material tokens
of a social decay afflict me terribly; a tipsy woman isn't
dreadfuler than a haggard old house, that's once been a home, in
a street like this.
Mr. Howells's pictures are not mere stiff, hard, accurate
photographs; they are photographs with feeling in them, and
sentiment, photographs taken in a dream, one might say.
As concerns his humor, I will not try to say anything, yet I
would try, if I had the words that might approximately reach up
to its high place. I do not think any one else can play with
humorous fancies so gracefully and delicately and deliciously as
 What is Man? |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: giving me time to say, 'God bless me.'
I thought, Trim, said my uncle Toby, a man never fell in love so very
suddenly.
Yes, an' please your honour, if he is in the way of it--replied Trim.
I prithee, quoth my uncle Toby, inform me how this matter happened.
--With all pleasure, said the corporal, making a bow.
Chapter 4.XLVI.
I had escaped, continued the corporal, all that time from falling in love,
and had gone on to the end of the chapter, had it not been predestined
otherwise--there is no resisting our fate.
It was on a Sunday, in the afternoon, as I told your honour.
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