| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson: With all disaster unto thine and thee!
For both thy younger brethren have gone down
Before this youth; and so wilt thou, Sir Star;
Art thou not old?'
'Old, damsel, old and hard,
Old, with the might and breath of twenty boys.'
Said Gareth, 'Old, and over-bold in brag!
But that same strength which threw the Morning Star
Can throw the Evening.'
Then that other blew
A hard and deadly note upon the horn.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy: habituated to anxious reasoning to drop the habit suddenly.
She felt none of those ups and downs of spirit which beset
so many people without cause; never--to paraphrase a recent
poet--never a gloom in Elizabeth-Jane's soul but she well
knew how it came there; and her present cheerfulness was
fairly proportionate to her solid guarantees for the same.
It might have been supposed that, given a girl rapidly
becoming good-looking, comfortably circumstanced, and for
the first time in her life commanding ready money, she would
go and make a fool of herself by dress. But no. The
reasonableness of almost everything that Elizabeth did was
 The Mayor of Casterbridge |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Nana, Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille by Emile Zola: need of a loan himself; a fall in stocks has cleaned him out--he
can't even bring me flowers now."
She was speaking of Daguenet. In the self-abandonment of her
awakening she had no secrets from Zoe, and the latter, inured to
such confidences, received them with respeciful sympathy. Since
Madame condescended to speak to her of her affairs she would permit
herself to say what she thought. Besides, she was very fond of
Madame; she had left Mme Blanche for the express purpose of taking
service with her, and heaven knew Mme Blanche was straining every
nerve to have her again! Situations weren't lacking; she was pretty
well known, but she would have stayed with Madame even in narrow
|