| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: of the steamer. But what made the idea of attack inconceivable
to me was the nature of the noise--of the cries we had heard.
They had not the fierce character boding immediate hostile intention.
Unexpected, wild, and violent as they had been, they had given me
an irresistible impression of sorrow. The glimpse of the steamboat
had for some reason filled those savages with unrestrained grief.
The danger, if any, I expounded, was from our proximity to a great
human passion let loose. Even extreme grief may ultimately vent
itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy.
. . .
"You should have seen the pilgrims stare! They had no heart to grin,
Heart of Darkness |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Duchesse de Langeais by Honore de Balzac: was ill, seeing that she grew thinner and paler and more dejected
every day. The vague ardour of love, the smart of wounded pride,
the continual prick of the only scorn that could touch her, the
yearnings towards joys that she craved with a vain continual
longing--all these things told upon her, mind and body; all the
forces of her nature were stimulated to no purpose. She was
paying the arrears of her life of make-believe.
She went out at last to a review. M. de Montriveau was to be
there. For the Duchess, on the balcony of the Tuileries with the
Royal Family, it was one of those festival days that are long
remembered. She looked supremely beautiful in her languor; she
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Hated Son by Honore de Balzac: overcome by a sort of religious contrition. He knelt down upon the
sand and made a vow:--
"I swear to build a chapel to Saint-Jean and Saint-Etienne, the
patrons of my wife and son, and to found one hundred masses in honor
of the Virgin, if God and the saints will restore to me the affection
of my son, the Duc de Nivron, here present."
He remained on his knees in deep humility with clasped hands, praying.
Finding that his son, the hope of his name, still did not come to him,
great tears rose in his eyes, dry so long, and rolled down his
withered cheeks. At this moment, Etienne, hearing no further sounds,
glided to the opening of his grotto like a young adder craving the
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