| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne: London docks of which he was the owner; he had no public employment;
he had never been entered at any of the Inns of Court, either at the Temple,
or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn; nor had his voice ever resounded
in the Court of Chancery, or in the Exchequer, or the Queen's Bench,
or the Ecclesiastical Courts. He certainly was not a manufacturer;
nor was he a merchant or a gentleman farmer. His name was strange
to the scientific and learned societies, and he never was known
to take part in the sage deliberations of the Royal Institution
or the London Institution, the Artisan's Association, or the
Institution of Arts and Sciences. He belonged, in fact,
to none of the numerous societies which swarm in the English capital,
Around the World in 80 Days |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: must prepare her - ask her if I may come. You say she never
mentions my name, and that I am never mentioned to her. To whom
should she mention me if I am a forbidden topic in the house? She
thinks you are all spies for her husband. Oh, I've no doubt she's
in hell among you! I guess by her silence, as much as anything,
what she feels. You say she is often restless, and anxious-
looking: is that a proof of tranquillity? You talk of her mind
being unsettled. How the devil could it be otherwise in her
frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending
her from DUTY and HUMANITY! From PITY and CHARITY! He might as
well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as
Wuthering Heights |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from 'Twixt Land & Sea by Joseph Conrad: sort is a light affair and comes in easily, yet my vigorous tug,
which should have brought it flying on board, merely recoiled upon
my body in a totally unexpected jerk. What the devil! . . . I was
so astounded by the immovableness of that ladder that I remained
stock-still, trying to account for it to myself like that imbecile
mate of mine. In the end, of course, I put my head over the rail.
The side of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow on the darkling
glassy shimmer of the sea. But I saw at once something elongated
and pale floating very close to the ladder. Before I could form a
guess a faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue
suddenly from the naked body of a man, flickered in the sleeping
'Twixt Land & Sea |
