| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Daisy Miller by Henry James: He asked himself whether Daisy's defiance came from the consciousness
of innocence, or from her being, essentially, a young person of the
reckless class. It must be admitted that holding one's self to a belief
in Daisy's "innocence" came to seem to Winterbourne more and more a matter
of fine-spun gallantry. As I have already had occasion to relate, he was
angry at finding himself reduced to chopping logic about this young lady;
he was vexed at his want of instinctive certitude as to how far her
eccentricities were generic, national, and how far they were personal.
From either view of them he had somehow missed her, and now it was too late.
She was "carried away" by Mr. Giovanelli.
A few days after his brief interview with her mother, he encountered
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Allan Quatermain by H. Rider Haggard: At the temple gates our party was received by a guard of soldiers,
who appeared to be under the orders of a priest; and by them
we were conducted into one of the ray or 'petal' courts, as the
priests call them, and there left for at least half-an-hour.
Here we conferred together, and realizing that we stood in great
danger of our lives, determined, if any attempt should be made
upon us, to sell them as dearly as we could -- Umslopogaas announcing
his fixed intention of committing sacrilege on the person of
Agon, the High Priest, by splitting his head with Inkosi-kaas.
From where we stood we could perceive that an immense multitude
were pouring into the temple, evidently in expectation of some
Allan Quatermain |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him
gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the
profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary
sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified--that it
infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain
degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive
superstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night
of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady
Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of
such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch--while the hours
The Fall of the House of Usher |
