| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Chance by Joseph Conrad: not so proud that you can't understand that I as a man have my pride
too?"
He saw a tear glide down her white cheek from under each lowered
eyelid. Then, abruptly, she walked out of the cabin. He stood for
a moment, concentrated, reckoning his own strength, interrogating
his heart, before he followed her hastily. Already she had reached
the wharf.
At the sound of his pursuing footsteps her strength failed her.
Where could she escape from this? From this new perfidy of life
taking upon itself the form of magnanimity. His very voice was
changed. The sustaining whirlwind had let her down, to stumble on
Chance |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: was small in area, and the external differences were not so great
as to astound us. We did not yet appreciate the differences between
the race-mind of this people and ours.
In the first place, they were a "pure stock" of two thousand
uninterrupted years. Where we have some long connected lines
of thought and feeling, together with a wide range of differences,
often irreconcilable, these people were smoothly and firmly
agreed on most of the basic principles of their life; and not only
agreed in principle, but accustomed for these sixty-odd generations
to act on those principles.
This is one thing which we did not understand--had made no
Herland |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: chapel of his thoughts grew so dim that as it faded away he asked
himself if he shouldn't find his real comfort in some material act,
some outward worship.
This idea took possession of him while, at a distance, the black-
robed lady continued prostrate; he was quietly thrilled with his
conception, which at last brought him to his feet in the sudden
excitement of a plan. He wandered softly through the aisles,
pausing in the different chapels, all save one applied to a special
devotion. It was in this clear recess, lampless and unapplied,
that he stood longest - the length of time it took him fully to
grasp the conception of gilding it with his bounty. He should
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