| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from A Drama on the Seashore by Honore de Balzac: remorse,--remorse sunk in the waves of prayer, the ceaseless
supplication of a mute despair. This fisherman, this mariner, this
hard, coarse Breton, was sublime through some hidden emotion. Had
those eyes wept? That hand, moulded for an unwrought statue, had it
struck? That ragged brow, where savage honor was imprinted, and on
which strength had left vestiges of the gentleness which is an
attribute of all true strength, that forehead furrowed with wrinkles,
was it in harmony with the heart within? Why was this man in the
granite? Why was the granite in the man? Which was the man, which was
the granite? A world of fancies came into our minds. As our guide had
prophesied, we passed in silence, rapidly; when he met us he saw our
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Maid Marian by Thomas Love Peacock: have been nothing to alter in their proportions.
"Do you know," said the little friar, as they wound along the banks
of the stream, "the reason why lake-trout is better than river-trout,
and shyer withal?"
"I was not aware of the fact," said Sir Ralph.
"A most heterodox remark," said brother Michael: "know you not,
that in all nice matters you should take the implication for absolute,
and, without looking into the FACT WHETHER, seek only the reason why?
But the fact is so, on the word of a friar; which what layman will venture
to gainsay who prefers a down bed to a gridiron?"
"The fact being so," said the knight, "I am still at a loss for the reason;
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy: down, he heard a "hoi-hoi!" uttered behind
him, in a piping note of more treble quality than that
in which the exclamation usually embodies itself when
shouted across a field. He looked round, and saw a girl
racing after him, waving a white handkerchief.
Oak stood still -- and the runner drew nearer. It was
Bathsheba Everdene. Gabriel's colour deepened: hers
was already deep, not, as it appeared, from emotion,
but from running.
"Farmer Oak -- I -- " she said, pausing for want of
breath pulling up in front of him with a slanted face
Far From the Madding Crowd |
