| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Message by Honore de Balzac: What an awful piece of news it was for a woman whose whole
thoughts were full of her young lover, who was looking forward
hour by hour to a joy which no words can express, a woman who had
been at a world of pains to invent plausible pretexts to draw him
to her side. Yet, after all, it was a cruel deed of charity to be
the messenger of death! So I hurried on, splashing and bemiring
myself in the byways of the Bourbonnais.
Before very long I reached a great chestnut avenue with a pile of
buildings at the further end--the Chateau of Montpersan stood out
against the sky like a mass of brown cloud, with sharp, fantastic
outlines. All the doors of the chateau stood open. This in itself
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde: "Then you are quite behind the age," said the Water-rat. "Every
good story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to
the beginning, and concludes with the middle. That is the new
method. I heard all about it the other day from a critic who was
walking round the pond with a young man. He spoke of the matter at
great length, and I am sure he must have been right, for he had
blue spectacles and a bald head, and whenever the young man made
any remark, he always answered 'Pooh!' But pray go on with your
story. I like the Miller immensely. I have all kinds of beautiful
sentiments myself, so there is a great sympathy between us."
"Well," said the Linnet, hopping now on one leg and now on the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: the stamp of a man who was not her man in Paul Morel.
There were some crimson berries among the leaves in the bowl.
He reached over and pulled out a bunch.
"If you put red berries in your hair," he said, "why would
you look like some witch or priestess, and never like a reveller?"
She laughed with a naked, painful sound.
"I don't know," she said.
His vigorous warm hands were playing excitedly with the berries.
"Why can't you laugh?" he said. "You never laugh laughter.
You only laugh when something is odd or incongruous, and then it
almost seems to hurt you."
Sons and Lovers |
