| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: that he felt a blind desire to punish some one else for the
pain it caused him.
As he sat moodily staring at the carpet its silly
intricacies melted into a blur from which the eyes of Mrs.
Leath again looked out at him. He saw the fine sweep of her
brows, and the deep look beneath them as she had turned from
him on their last evening in London. "This will be good-
bye, then," she had said; and it occurred to him that her
parting phrase had been the same as Sophy Viner's.
At the thought he jumped to his feet and took down from its
hook the coat in which he had left Miss Viner's letter. The
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: to be believed in his own case against an English Protestant, who
is true to his government, I shall leave to the candid and
impartial reader.
The other objection is the unhappy occasion of this discourse,
and relates to an article in my predictions, which foretold the
death of Mr. Partridge, to happen on March 29, 1708. This he is
pleased to contradict absolutely in the almanack he has published
for the present year, and in that ungentlemanly manner (pardon
the expression) as I have above related. In that work he very
roundly asserts, That he is not only now alive, but was likewise
alive upon that very 29th of March, when I had foretold he should
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: had had the stupidity to place himself adversely to the shadow thrown
by the verdant majestic heads of the palm trees. He looked at the
solitary trees and shuddered--they reminded him of the graceful shafts
crowned with foliage which characterize the Saracen columns in the
cathedral of Arles.
But when, after counting the palm trees, he cast his eyes around him,
the most horrible despair was infused into his soul. Before him
stretched an ocean without limit. The dark sand of the desert spread
further than eye could reach in every direction, and glittered like
steel struck with bright light. It might have been a sea of looking-
glass, or lakes melted together in a mirror. A fiery vapor carried up
|
