| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: over the name scratched on that window-ledge. A monotonous
occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or - '
'What CAN you mean by talking in this way to ME!' thundered
Heathcliff with savage vehemence. 'How - how DARE you, under my
roof? - God! he's mad to speak so!' And he struck his forehead
with rage.
I did not know whether to resent this language or pursue my
explanation; but he seemed so powerfully affected that I took pity
and proceeded with my dreams; affirming I had never heard the
appellation of 'Catherine Linton' before, but reading it often over
produced an impression which personified itself when I had no
Wuthering Heights |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Louis Lambert by Honore de Balzac: meeting a soul. There the sound of my steps brought out an old woman,
to whom I gave a letter written to Mademoiselle de Villenoix by
Monsieur Lefebvre. In a few minutes this woman returned to bid me
enter, and led me to a low room, floored with black-and-white marble;
the Venetian shutters were closed, and at the end of the room I dimly
saw Louis Lambert.
"Be seated, monsieur," said a gentle voice that went to my heart.
Mademoiselle de Villenoix was at my side before I was aware of her
presence, and noiselessly brought me a chair, which at first I would
not accept. It was so dark that at first I saw Mademoiselle de
Villenoix and Lambert only as two black masses perceived against the
Louis Lambert |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Familiar Studies of Men and Books by Robert Louis Stevenson: hand. So we must always see to it nearly, that we judge by
the realities of life and not by the partial terms that
represent them in man's speech; and at times of choice, we
must leave words upon one side, and act upon those brute
convictions, unexpressed and perhaps inexpressible, which
cannot be flourished in an argument, but which are truly the
sum and fruit of our experience. Words are for
communication, not for judgment. This is what every
thoughtful man knows for himself, for only fools and silly
schoolmasters push definitions over far into the domain of
conduct; and the majority of women, not learned in these
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